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WORKS BY MR. H. S. SALT.
•/
SHELLEY PRIMER. London, 1887.
LITERARY SKETCHES, Crown 8vo. London, 1888.
THE LIFE OF JAMES THOMSON, with a Selec-
tion from his Letters, and a Study of his Writings.
8vo. London,
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY : A Monograph. With
Portrait. Fcap. 8vo. London, 1889.
RICHARD JEFFERIES: A Study. With Portrait.
Fcap. 8vo. Dilettante Library, London, 1893.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. i6mo. Canterbury Poets.
London, 1893.
TENNYSON AS A THINKER. i2mo. London, 1893.
THE LIFE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU.
HUMANITARIANISM : Its General Principles and
Progress. London.
A PLEA FOR VEGETARIANISM, and Other Essays.
Manchester.
ANIMALS' RIGHTS,
" I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul
look out upon me.
" I saw where it was born deep down under feathers and
fur, or condemned for awhile to roam four-footed among the
brambles. I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner,
and swore that I would be faithful.
" Thee my brother and sister I see and mistake not. Do
not be afraid. Dwelling thus for a while, fulfilling thy ap-
pointed time — thou too shalt come to thyself at last.
" Thy half- warm horns and long tongue lapping round my
wrist, do not conceal thy humanity any more than the learned
talk of the pedant conceals his — for all thou art dumb, we
have words and plenty between us.
" Come nigh, little bird, with your half-stretched quivering
wings — within you I behold choirs of angels, and the Lord
himself in vista."
Towards Deinocracy.
ANIMALS' RIGHTS
CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO SOCIAL
PROGRESS
WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX
BY
HENRY S. SALT
AUTHOR OF "the LIFE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU '
ALSO AN ESSA Y
ON VIVISECTION IN AMERICA
BY
ALBERT LEFFINGWELL, M.D.
AUTHOR OF "illegitimacy: A STUDY IN DEMOGRAPHY,"
"rambles in japan," etc.
NEW YORK
MACMILLAN & CO.
AND LONDON
1894
COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY
MACMILLAN & CO.
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
PREFATORY NOTE.
The object of the following essay is to set the principle
of animals' rights on a consistent and intelligible foot-
ing, to show that this principle underlies the various
efforts of humanitarian reformers, and to make a clear-
ance of the comfortable fallacies which the apologists
of the present system have industriously accumulated.
While not hesitating to speak strongly when occasion
demanded, I have tried to avoid the tone of irrelevant
recrimination so common in these controversies, and
thus to give more unmistakable emphasis to the vital
points at issue. We have to decide, not whether the
practice of fox-hunting, for example, is more, or less,
cruel than vivisection, but whether all practices which
inflict unnecessary pain on sentient beings are not in-
compatible with the higher instincts of humanity.
I am aware that many of my contentions will appear
very ridiculous to those who view the subject from a
contrary standpoint, and regard the lower animals as
created solely for the pleasure and advantage of man ;
on the other hand, I have myself derived an unfailing
fund of amusement from a rather extensive study of our
adversaries' reasoning. It is a conflict of opinion,
wherein time alone can adjudicate ; but already there
vi PREFATORY NOTE.
are not a few signs that the laugh will rest ultimately
with the humanitarians.
My thanks are due to several friends who have helped
me in the preparation of this book ; I may mention Mr.
Krnest Bell, Mr. Kenneth Romanes, and Mr. W. E. A.
Axon. My many obligations to previous writers are
acknowledged in the foot-notes and appendices.
H. S. S.
Septe7nber, 1892.
CONTENTS.
ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
Chapter I. The Principle of Animals' Rights.
The general doctrine of rights ; Herbert Spencer's definition.
Early advocates of animals' rights ; " Martin's Act," 1822.
Need of an intelligible principle. Two main causes of the denial
of animals' rights: (i) The "religious" notion that animals
have no souls, (2) the Cartesian theory that animals have no
consciousness. The individuality of animals. Opinions of
Schopenhauer, Darwin, etc. The question of nomenclature ;
objectionable use of such terms as "brute beast," etc. The
progressiveness of humanitarian feeling ; analogous instance of
negro slavery. Difficulties and objections ; arguments drawn
from "the struggle of life." Animals' rights not antagonistic
to human rights. Summary of the principle . pp. 1-23
Chapter II. The Case of Domestic Animals.
Special claims of the domestic animals ; services performed by
them ; human obligations in return. Opinions of Humphry
Primatt and John Lawrence. Common disregard of rights in
the case of horses, cattle, sheep, etc. Castration of animals.
Treatment of dogs and cats. Condition of the household ' ' pet "
compared with that of the " beast of burden " , pp. 24-35
Vlii CONTENTS.
Chapter III. The Case of Wild Animals.
Wild animals have rights, though not yet recognized in law. The
influence of property. Man not justified in injuring any harm-
less animal. The condition of animals in menageries ; the
fallacy that " they gain by it." Caged birds. A right relation-
ship must be based on sympathy, not power . pp. 36-42
Chapter IV. The Slaughter of Animals for Food.
Important bearing of the food question on the consideration of
animals' rights. The assumption that flesh-food is necessary; con-
tradictory statements of flesh-eaters. Experience proves that man
is not compelled to kill animals for food. Cruelties inseparable
from slaughtering ; feeling of repugnance thereby aroused.
The logic of these facts. Ingenious attempts at evasion :
" Animals would otherwise not exist ; " " scriptural permission."
The coming success of food-reform . . . pp. 43-52
Chapter V. Sport, or Amateur Butchery.
Sport the most wanton of all violations of animals' rights. Child-
ish fallacies of sportsmen. Tame stag-hunting ; rabbitcours-
ing ; cruel treatment of "vermin ; " steel traps. The testimony
of an expert on cover-shooting . . . pp. 53-62
Chapter VI. Murderous Millinery.
The fur and feather traffic. In what sense it is "necessary;"
the use of leather. Fashionable demand for furs causes whole
provinces to be ransacked. The wearing of feathers in bonnets ;
heartless massacre of birds. Due to ignorance and thoughtless-
ness . . ...... pp. 63-71
CONTENTS, IX
Chapter VII. Experimental Torture.
The analytical methods of scientists and naturalists. Vivisection
the logical outcome of this mood. The horrors of vivisection.
Its alleged utility. Moral considerations involved ; nothing
that is inhuman can be in accord with true science. Experi-
ments on animals as compared with experiments on men. The
plea that vivisection is "no worse" than other cruelties. The
exact significance of vivisection in the question of animals'
rights pp. 72-82
Chapter VIII. Lines of Reform.
The lesson of the foregoing instances of cruelty and injustice ; the
only solution of the problem is to recognize animals' rights. No
"sentimentality," where difficulties are fairly faced. The
future path of humanitarianism. Human interests involved in
animals' rights; extension of the idea of "humanity" both in
western thought and oriental tradition. The movement essen-
tially a democratic one ; the emancipation of man will bring with
it the emancipation of animals. Practical steps toward
securing the rights of animals : (i) Education. Useless to
preach humanity to children only ; need of an intellectual and
literary crusade. The laugh to be turned against the real senti-
mentalists, our opponents. (2) Legislation, Laisser-faire
objections refuted. Cases where immediate action is desirable.
Conclusion pp. 83-104
Bibliography of the Rights of Animals . pp. 105-132
X CONTENTS.
-VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
Chapter I, Vivisection in Medical Schools.
Conflicting opinions. What are " abuses " of vivisection ? Experi-
ments of Brachet, Castex, Von Lesser, Chauveau, Mantagazza,
and others. The absence of restraints always invites excesses.
No safeguards against the abuse of experimentation exist in any
part of America. What has been done in the United States.
Opinion of Dr. Bigelow, of Harvard University. The British
Medical Jour tial oxi certain American "original investigations."
Prevention of abuses, by State restriction and supervision.
pp. 133-146
Chapter II. Vivisection in American Colleges.
The new scientific ideal. Biology in the American university.
Opportunities for its study at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cor-
nell, University of Michigan, and others. The use of torture
as for illustration of science-teaching. The atrocious ex-
periment of Strieker, of Vienna. What prevents its repetition in
American colleges ? Have any restrictions been made by the
leading colleges, regulating or forbidding the use of prolonged
torture of animals, in the study of physiology? Correspondence
with college presidents. No impediments at present hinder the
infliction of any degree of torment desired in any of the princi-
pal American colleges. Suggested reforms. The responsibility
for low ideals. The hope for the future . pp. 147-168
Appendix A. The Lines of Personal Investigation ad-
vised, regarding Vivisection . . pp. 169-174
Appendix B. The American Humane Association 01^
Restriction of Vivisection ... pp. 175-176
ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS,
Have the lower animals ''rights?" Undoubtedly — if
men have. That is the point I wish to make evident
in this opening chapter. But have men rights? Let it
be stated at the outset that I have no intention of dis-
cussing the abstract theory of natural rights, which, at
the present time, is looked upon with suspicion and dis-
favour by many social reformers, since it has not unfre-
quently been made to cover the most extravagant and
contradictory assertions. But though its phraseology is
confessedly vague and perilous, there is nevertheless a
solid truth underlying it — a truth which has always been
clearly apprehended by the moral faculty, however diffi-
cult it may be to establish it on an unassailable logical
basis. If men have not ''rights" — well, they have an
unmistakable intimation of something very similar ; a
sense of justice which marks the boundary-line where
acquiescence ceases and resistance begins ; a demand for
freedom to live their own life, subject to the necessity of
respecting the equal freedom of other people.
2 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
Such is the doctrine of rights as formulated by Her-
bert Spencer. '' Every man/' he says, ''is free to do
that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal
liberty of any other man." And again, " Whoever ad-
mits that each man must have a certain restricted free-
dom, asserts that it is right he should have this restricted
freedom. . . . And hence the several particular
freedoms deducible may fitly be called, as they common-
ly are called, his rights.''^ ^
The fitness of this nomenclature is disputed, but the
existence of some real principle of the kind can hardly
be called in question ; so that the controversy concern-
ing ''rights " is little else than an academic battle over
words, which leads to no practical conclusion. I shall
assume, therefore, that men are possessed of " rights " in
the sense of Herbert Spencer's definition ; and if any of
my readers object to this qualified use of the term, I can
only say that I shall be perfectly willing to change the
word as soon as a more appropriate one is forthcoming.
The immediate question that claims our attention is this
— if men have rights, have animals their rights also ?
From the earliest times there have been thinkers who,
directly or indirectly, answered this question with an
affirmative. The Buddhist and Pythagorean canons,
dominated perhaps by the creed of reincarnation, in-
cluded the maxim "not to kill or injure any innocent
animal. ' ' The humanitarian philosophers of the Roman
empire, among whom Seneca and Plutarch and Porphyry
were the most conspicuous, took still higher ground in
^ "Justice," pp. 46, 62.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 3
preaching humanity on the broadest principle of univer-
sal benevolence, '■'■ Since justice is due to rational be-
ings," wrote Porphyry, ^' how is it possible to evade the
admission that we are bound also to act justly towards
the races below us ? "
It is a lamentable fact that during the churchdom of
the middle ages, from the fourth century to the six-
teenth, from the time of Porphyry to the time of Mon-
taigne, little or no attention was paid to the question of
the rights and wrongs of the lower races. Then, with
the Reformation and the revival of learning, came a re-
vival also of humanitarian feeling, as may be seen in
many passages of Erasmus and More, Shakespeare and
Bacon ; but it was not until the eighteenth century, the
age of enlightenment and ^'sensibility," of which Vol-
taire and Rousseau were the spokesmen, that the rights
of animals obtained more deliberate recognition. From
the great Revolution of 1789 dates the period when the
world-wide spirit of humanitarianism, which had hitherto
been felt by but one man in a million — the thesis of the
philosopher or the vision of the poet — began to disclose
itself, gradually and dimly at first, as an essential feature
of democracy.
A great and far-reaching effect was produced in Eng-
land at this time by the publication of such revolutionary
works as Paine's ''Rights of Man," and Mary Woll-
stonecraft's " Vindication of the Rights of Women; "
and looking back now, after the lapse of a hundred
years, we can see that a still wider extension of the the-
ory of rights was thenceforth inevitable. In fact, such
4 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
a claim was anticipated — if only in bitter jest — by a
contemporary writer, who furnishes us with a notable in-
stance of how the mockery of one generation may be-
come the reality of the next. There was published
anonymously in 1792 a little volume entitled " A Vin-
dication of the Rights of Brutes, " ^ a reductio ad absur-
dum of Mary Wollstonecraft's essay, written, as the
author informs us, '^ to evince by demonstrative argu-
ments the perfect equality of what is called the irrational
species to the human. ' ' The further opinion is expressed
that ^' after those wonderful productions of Mr. Paine
and Mrs. Wollstonecraft, such a theory as the present
seems to be necessary. ' ' It was necessary ; and a very
short term of years sufficed to bring it into effect ; in-
deed, the theory had already been put forward by sev-
eral English pioneers of nineteenth-century humanita-
rianism.
To Jeremy Bentham, in particular, belongs the high
honour of first asserting the rights of animals with au-
thority and persistence. "The legislator," he wrote,
^' ought to interdict everything which may serve to
lead to cruelty. The barbarous spectacles of gladiators
no doubt contributed to give the Romans that ferocity
which they displayed in their civil wars. A people ac-
customed to despise human life in their games could
not be expected to respect it amid the fury of their pas-
sions. It is proper for the same reason to forbid every
kind of cruelty towards animals, whether by way of
amusement, or to gratify gluttony. Cock-fights, bull-
^ Attributed to Thomas Taylor, the Platonist.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 5
baiting, hunting hares and foxes, fishing, and other
amusements of the same kind, necessarily suppose either
the absence of reflection or a fund of inhumanity, since
they produce the most acute sufferings to sensible
beings, and the most painful and lingering death of
which we can form any idea. Why should the law re-
fuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time
will come when humanity will extend its mantle over
everything which breathes. We have begun by attend-
ing to the condition of slaves; we shall finish by soften-
ing that of all the animals which assist our labours
or supply our wants." ^
So, too, wrote one of Bentham's contemporaries :
*' The grand source of the unmerited and superfluous
misery of beasts exists in a defect in the constitution
of all communities. No human government, I believe,
has ever recognized the jits animalium, which ought
surely to form a part of the jurisprudence of every
system founded on the principles of justice and human-
ity." ^ A large number of later moralists have fol-
lowed on the same lines, with the result that the rights
of animals have already, to a certain limited extent,
been established both in private usage and by legal
enactment.
It is interesting to note the exact commencement of
this new principle in law. When Lord Erskine, speak-
ing in the House of Lords in 1811, advocated the
'" Principles of Penal Law," chajp. xvi.
^ John Lawrence, "Philosophical Treatise on the Moral Duties
of Man towards the Brute Creation," 1796.
6 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
cause of justice to the lower animals, he Avas greeted
witli loud cries of insult and derision. But eleven
years later the efforts of the despised humanitarians,
and especially of Richard Martin, of Galvvay, were re-
warded by their first success. The passing of the Ill-
treatment of Cattle Bill, commonly known as '' Martin's
Act," in June, 1822, is a memorable date in the history
of humane legislation, less on account of the positive
protection afforded by it, for it applied only to cattle
and " beasts of burden," than for the invaluable prece-
dent which it created. From 1822 onward, the prin-
ciple of that jus a7iimaliii7n for which Bentham had
pleaded, was recognized, however partially and tenta-
tively at first, by English law, and the animals included
in the Act ceased to be the mere property of their own-
ers ; moreover the Act has been several times supple-
mented and extended during the past half century.^ It
is scarcely possible, in the face of this legislation, to
maintain that '^rights" are a privilege with which
none but human beings can be invested ; for if some
animals are already included within the pale of protec-
tion, why should not more and more be so included in
the future?
For the present, however, what is most urgently need-
ed is some comprehensive and intelligible principle,
which shall indicate, in a more consistent manner, the
true lines of man's moral relation towards the lower
^ Viz. : in 1833, 1835, 1849, 1854, 1876, 1884. We shall have
occasion, in subsequent chapters, to refer to some of these enact-
ments.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 7
animals. And here, it must be admitted, our position
is still far from satisfactory ; for though certain very
important concessions have been made, as we have seen ,
to the demand for the jus animalmm, they have been
made for the most part in a grudging, unwilling spirit,
and rather in the interests oi property than oi principle ;
while even the leading advocates of animals' rights
seem to have shrunk from basing their claim on the
only argument which can ultimately be held to be a
really sufficient one— the assertion that animals, as well
as men, though, of course, to a far less extent than men,
are possessed of a distinctive individuality, and, there-
fore, are in justice entitled to live their lives with a
due measure of that ''restricted freedom" to which
Herbert Spencer alludes. It is of little use to claim
" rights " for animals in a vague general way, if with *
the same breath we explicitly show our determination to
subordinate those rights to anything and everything that
can be construed into a human ''want;" nor will it
ever be possible to obtain full justice for the lower
races so long as we continue to regard them as beings of
a wholly different order, and to ignore the significance
of their numberless points of kinship with mankind. /
For example, it has been said by a well-known writer
on the subject of humanity to animals ^ that " the life of
a brute, having no moral purpose, can best be under-
stood ethically as representing the sum of its pleasures ;
and the obligation, therefore, of producing the pleasures
1 "Fraser," November, 1863 ; "The Rights of Man and the
Claims of Brutes."
8 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
of sentient creatures must be reduced, in their case, to
the abstinence from unnecessary destruction of life."
Now, with respect to this statement, I must say that the
notion of the Hfe of an animal having '' no moral pur-
pose," belongs to a class of ideas which cannot possibly
be accepted by the advanced humanitarian thought of
the present day — it is a purely arbitrary assumption, at
variance with our best instintcs, at variance with our
best science, and absolutely fatal (if the subject be
clearly thought out) to any full realization of animals'
rights. If we are ever going to do justice to the lower
races, we must get rid of the antiquated notion of a
"great gulf" fixed between them and mankind, and
must recognize the common bond of humanity that
unites all living beings in one universal brotherhood.
As far as any excuses can be alleged, in explanation
of the insensibility or inhumanity of the western nations
in their treatment of animals, these excuses may be
mostly traced back to one or the other of two theoretical
contentions, wholly different in origin, yet alike in this
— that both postulate an absolute difference of nature
between men and the lower kinds.
The first is the so-called "religious" notion, which
awards immortality to man, but to man alone, thereby
furnishing (especially in Catholic countries) a quibbling
justification for acts of cruelty to animals, on the plea
that they " have no souls." " It should seem," says a
modern writer,^ " as if the primitive Christians, by lay-
^ Mrs. Jameson, " Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies,"
1854. ■ •
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 9
ing SO much stress upon a future life, in contradistinc-
tion to this life, and placing the lower creatures out of the
pale of hope, placed them at the same time out of the pale
of sympathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter
disregard of animals in the light of our fellow-creatures."
I am aware that a quite contrary argument has, in a
few isolated instances, been founded on the belief that
animals have ''no souls." Humphry Primatt, for ex-
ample, says that '' cruelty to a brute is an injury irrep-
arable," because there is no future life to be a compen-
sation for present afflictions ; and there is an amusing
story, told by Lecky in his "History of European
Morals," of a certain humanely-minded Cardinal, who
used to allow vermin to bite him without hindrance, on
the ground that '' we shall have heaven to reward us for
our sufferings, but these poor creatures have nothing but
the enjoyment of this present life. ' ' But this is a rare
view of the question which need not, I think, be taken
into very serious account ; for, on the whole, the denial
of immortality to animals (unless, of course, it be also
denied to men) tends strongly to lessen their chance of
being justly and considerately treated. Among the
many humane movements of the present age, none is
more significant than the growing inclination, noticeable
both in scientific circles and in religious, to believe that
mankind and the lower animals have the same destiny
before them, whether that destiny be for immortality or
for annihilation.^
' See the article on "Animal Immortality," " The Nineteenth
Century," Jan., 1891, by Norman Pearson. The upshot of his
10 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
The second and not less fruitful source of modern in-
humanity is to be found in the ' ' Cartesian ' ' doctrine
— the theory of Descartes and his followers — that the
lower animals are devoid of consciousness and feeling ; a
theory which carried the ^* religious " notion a step fur-
ther, and deprived the animals not only of their claim to
a life hereafter, but of anything that could, without
mockery, be called a life in the present, since mere
^'animated machines," as they were thus affirmed to be,
could in no real sense be said to live at all ! Well might
Voltaire turn his humane ridicule against this most mon-
strous contention, and suggest, with scathing irony, that
God ''had given the animals the organs of feeling, to
the end that they might not feel ! " " The theory of
animal automatism," says one of the leading scientists
of the present day,i '' which is usually attributed to
Descartes, can never be accepted by common sense."
Yet it is to be feared that it has done much, in its time,
to harden ''scientific " sense against the just complaints
of the victims of human arrogance and oppression.
Let me here quote a most impressive passage from
Scliopenhauer. " The unpardonable forgetfulness in
which the lower animals have hitherto been left by the
argument is, that "if we accept the immortality of the human
soul, and also accept its evolutional origin, we cannot deny the sur-
vival, in some form or other, of animal minds."
^ G. J. Romanes, " Animal Intelligence." Prof. Huxley's re-
marks, in " Science and Culture," give a partial support to Des-
cartes' theory, but do not bear on the moral question of rights.
For, though he concludes that animals are probably ' ' sensitive
automata," he classes men in the same category.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 11
moralists of Europe is well known. It is pretended that
the beasts have no rights. They persuade themselves
that our conduct in regard to them has nothing to do
with morals, or (to speak the language of their moral-
ity) that we have no duties towards animals : a doc-
trine revolting, gross, and barbarous, peculiar to the
west, and having its root in Judaism. In philosophy,
however, it is made to rest upon a hypothesis, admitted,
in despite of evidence itself, of an absolute difference
between man and beast. It is Descartes who has pro-
claimed it in the clearest and most decisive manner;
and in fact it was a necessary consequence of his errors.
The Cartesian - Leibnitzian - Wolfian philosophy, with
the assistance of entirely abstract notions, had built up
the 'rational psychology,' and constructed an immor-
tal anima rationalis : but, visibly, the world of beasts,
with its very natural claims, stood up against this ex-
clusive monopoly — this brevet of immortality decreed
to man alone — and silently Nature did what she always
does in such cases — she protested. Our philosophers,
feehng their scientific conscience quite disturbed, were
forced to attempt to consolidate their ' rational psychol-
ogy' by the aid of empiricism. They therefore set
themselves to work to hollow out between man and
beast an enormous abyss, of an immeasurable width ;
by this they wish to prove to us, in contempt of evi-
dence, an impassable difference. ' ' ^
The fallacious idea that the lives of animals have '^ no
' Schopenhauer's " Foundation of Morality." I quote the pas-
sage as translated in Mr. Howard Williams's " Ethics of Diet."
12 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
moral purpose "is at root connected with these rehg-
ious and philosophical pretensions which Schopenhauer
so powerfully condemns. To live one's own life — to
realize one's true self — is the highest moral purpose of
man and animal alike ; and that animals possess their
due measure of this sense of individuality is scarcely
open to doubt. " We have seen," says Darwin, '' that
the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and
faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity,
imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be
found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-de-
veloped condition, in the lower animals." ^ Not less
emphatic is the testimony of the Rev. J. G. Wood,
who, speaking from a great experience, gives it as his
opinion that " the manner in which Ave ignore individ-
uality in the lower animals is simply astounding." He
claims for them a future life, because he is " quite sure
that most of the cruelties which are perpetrated on the
animals are due to the habit of considering them as
mere machines without susceptibilities, without reason,
and without the capacity of a future.^ ' ^
This, then, is the position of those who assert that
animals, like men, are necessarily possessed of certain
limited rights, which cannot be withheld from them as
they are now withheld without tyranny and injustice.
They have individuality, character, reason ; and to
have those qualities is to have the right to exercise
them, in so far as surrounding circumstances permit.
^ " Descent of Man," chap. iii.
2 " Man and Beast, here and hereafter," 1874.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 1 3
*' Freedom of choice and act," says Ouida, '' is the first
condition of animal as of human happiness. How
many animals in a million have even relative freedom
in any moment of their lives ? No choice is ever per-
mitted to them ; and all their most natural instincts are
denied or made subject to authority." ^ Yet no human
being is justified in regarding any animal whatsoever as
a meaningless automaton, to be worked, or tortured,
or eaten, as the case may be, for the mere object of sat-
isfying the wants or- whims of mankind. Together with
the destinies and duties that are laid on them and ful-
filled by them, animals have also the right to be treated
with gentleness and consideration, and the man who
does not so treat them, however great his learning or
influence may be, is, in that respect, an ignorant and
foolish man, devoid of the highest and noblest culture
of which the human mind is capable.
Something must here be said on the important sub-
ject of nomenclature. It is to be feared that the ill-
treatment of animals is largely due — or at any rate the
difficulty of amending that treatment is largely increased
— by the common use of such terms as '' brute-beast,"
<' live-stock," etc., which implicitly deny to the lower
races that intelligent individuality which is most un-
doubtedly possessed by them. It was long ago remarked
by Bentham, in his ''Introduction to Principles of
Morals and Legislation," that, whereas human beings are
^XyX^di persons, " other animals, on account of their in-
terests having been neglected by the insensibility of the
1 " Fortnightly Review," April, 1892.
14 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
ancient jurists, stand degraded into the class of tJmigs ; ' '
and Schopenhauer also has commented on the mischiev-
ous absurdity of the idiom which applies the neuter
pronoun " it " to such highly organized primates as the
dog and the ape.
A word of protest is needed also against such an ex-
pression as " dumb animals," which, though often cited
as ''an immense exhortation to pity," ^ has in reality a
tendency to influence ordinary people in quite the con-
trary direction, inasmuch as it fosters the idea of an im-
passable barrier between mankind and their dependents.
It is convenient to us men to be deaf to the entreaties
of the victims of our injustice ; and, by a sort of grim
irony, we therefore assume that it is they who are
afllicted by some organic incapacity — they are ''dumb
animals," forsooth ! although a moment's consideration
must prove that they have innumerable ways, often
quite human in variety and suggestiveness, of uttering
their thoughts and emotions.'^ Even the term " ani-
' In Sir A. Helps's " Animals and their Masters."
^ Let those who think that men are likely to treat animals with
more humanity on account of their dumbness ponder the case of
the fish, as exemplified in the following whimsically suggestive
passage of Leigh Hunt's " Imaginary Conversations of Pope and
Swift." " The Dean once asked a scrub who was fishing, if he
had ever caught a fish called the Scream. The man protested that
he had never heard of such a fish. ' What ! * says the Dean,
' you an angler, and never heard of the fish that gives a shriek
when coming out of the water? 'Tis the only fish that has a voice,
and a sad, dismal sound it is.' The man asked who could be so
barbarous as to angle for a creature that shrieked. ' That,' said
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 1 5
mals," as applied to the lower races, is incorrect, and
not wholly unobjectionable, since it ignores the fact
that man is an animal no less than they. My only ex-
cuse for using it in this volume is that there is absolutely
no other brief term available.
So anomalous is the attitude of man towards the low-
er animals, that it is no marvel if many humane think-
ers have wellnigh despaired over this question. '^ The
whole subject of the brute creation, ' ' wrote Dr. Arnold,
^ Ms to me one of such painful mystery, that I dare not
approach it ; " and this (to put the most charitable in-
terpretation on their silence) appears to be the position
of the majority of moralists and teachers at the present
time. Yet there is urgent need of some key to the solu-
tion of the problem ; and in no other way can this key
be found than by the full inclusion of the lower races
within the pale of human sympathy. All the prompt-
ings of our best and surest instincts point us in this
direction. *'It is abundantly evident," says Lecky,i
" both from history and from present experience, that the
instinctive shock, or natural feelings of disgust, caused
by the sight of the sufferings of men, is not generically
different from that which is caused by the sight of the
suffering of animals. ' '
If this be so — and the admission is a momentous one
— can it be seriously contended that the same humani-
the Dean, ' is another matter ; but what do you think of fellows
that I have seen, whose only reason for hooking and tearing all
the fish they can get at, is that they do not scream?' "
* " History of European Morals."
1 6 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
tarian tendency which has already emancipated the
slave, will not ultimately benefit the lower races also?
Here, again, the historian of ** European Morals" has
a significant remark: ^'At one time," he says, "the
benevolent affections embrace merely the family, soon
the circle expanding includes first a class, then a na-
tion, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity; and
finally its influence is felt in the dealings of man with
the animal world. In each of these cases a standard is
formed, different from that of the preceding stage, but in
each case the same tendency is recognized as virtue. ' ' ^
But, it may be argued, vague sympathy with the
lower animals is one thing, and a definite recognition of
their "rights " is another; what reason is there to sup-
pose that we shall advance from the former phase to the
latter ? Just this ; that every great liberating move-
ment has proceeded exactly on these lines. Oppression
and cruelty are invariably founded on a lack of imag-
inative sympathy ; the tyrant or tormentor can have
no true sense of kinship with the victim of his injustice.
When once the sense of affinity is awakened, the knell
of tyranny is sounded, and the ultimate concession of
* ' rights ' ' is simply a matter of time. The present
condition of the more highly organized domestic ani-
mals is in many ways very analogous to that of the
negro slaves of a hundred years ago : look back, and
you will find in their case precisely the same exclusion
from the common pale of humanity ; the same hypo-
critical fallacies, to justify that exclusion ; and, as a
^ " History of European Morals," i. loi.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 1/
consequence, the same deliberate stubborn denial of
their social '^ rights." Look back — for it is well to do
so — and then look forward, and the moral can hardly
be mistaken.
We find so great a thinker and writer as Aristotle
seriously pondering whether a slave may be considered as
in any sense a man. In emphasizing the point that
friendship is founded on propinquity, he expresses him-
self as follows : '' Neither can men have friendships with
horses, cattle, or slaves, considered merely as such ; for
a slave is merely a living instrument, and an instrument
a living slave. Yet, considered as a man, a slave may
be an object of friendship, for certain rights seem to
belong to all those capable of participating in law and
engagement. A slave, then, considered as a man, may
be treated justly or unjustly." ^ ''Slaves," says Ben-
tham, ''have been treated by the law exactly upon the
same footing as in England, for example, the inferior
races of animals are still. The day may come when the
rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights
which could never have been wathholden from them but
by the hand of tyranny. ' ' ^
Let us unreservedly admit the immense difficulties
that stand in the way of this animal enfranchisement.
Our relation towards the animals is complicated and
embittered by innumerable habits handed down through
centuries of mistrust and brutality ; we cannot, in all
cases, suddenly relax these habits, or do full justice even
^ " Ethics," book viii.
2 " Principles of Morals and Legislation."
2
1 8 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
where we see that justice will have to be done. A per-
fect ethic of humaneness is therefore impracticable, if
not unthinkable ; and we can attempt to do no more
than to indicate in a general way the main principle of
animals' rights, noting at the same time the most flagrant
particular violations of those rights, and the lines on
which the only valid reform can hereafter be effected.
But, on the other hand, it may be remembered, for tliQ
comfort and encouragement of humanitarian workers,
that. these obstacles are, after all, only such as are inevi-
table in each branch of social improvement ; for at every
stage of every great reformation it has been repeatedly
argued, by indifferent or hostile observers, that further
progress is impossible ; indeed, when the opponents of a
great cause begin to demonstrate its ''impossibility,"
experience teaches us that that cause is already on the
high road to fulfilment.
As for the demand so frequently made on reformers,
that they should first explain the details of their scheme
— how this and that point will be arranged, and by what
process all kinds of difficulties, real or imagined, will be
circumvented — the only rational reply is that it is absurd
to expect to see the end of a question, when we are now
but at its beginning. The persons who offer this futile
sort of criticism are usually those who under no circum-
stances would be open to conviction \ they purposely
ask for an explanation which, by the very nature of the
case, is impossible because it necessarily belongs to a
later period of time. It would be equally sensible to
request a traveller td enumerate beforehand all the par-
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' lUGIITS. 1 9
ticular things he will see by the way, on pain of being
denounced as an unpractical visionary, although he may
have a quite sufficient general knowledge of his course
and destination.
Our main principle is now clear. If '''rights " exist
at all — and both feeling and usage indubitably prove that
they do exist — they cannot be consistently awarded to
men and denied to animals, since the same sense of jus-
tice and compassion apply in both cases. ''Pain is
pain," says an honest, old writer, ^ " whether it be in-
flicted on man or on beast ; and the creature that suffers
it, whether man or beast, being sensible of the misery of
it while it lasts, suffers evil ; and the sufferance of evil,
unmeritedly, unprovokedly, where no offence has been
given, and no good can possibly be answered by it, but
merely to exhibit power or gratify malice, is Cruelty and
Injustice in him that occasions it."
I commend this outspoken utterance to the attention of
those ingenious moralists who quibble about the "dis-
cipline " of suffering, and deprecate immediate attempts
to redress what, it is alleged, may be a necessary instru-
ment for the attainment of human welfare. It is, per-
haps, a mere coincidence, but it has been observed that
those who are most forward to disallow the rights of
others, and to argue that suffering and subjection are
the natural lot of all living things, are usually them-
selves exempt from the operation of this beneficent law,
and that the beauty of self-sacrifice is most loudly be-
^ Humphry Primatt, D.D., author of " The Duty of Mercy to
Brute Animals " (1776).
20 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
lauded by those who profit most largely at the expense
of their fellow-creatures.
But ''nature is one with rapine," say some, and this
Utopian theory of ''rights," if too widely extended,
must come in conflict with that iron rule of internecine
competition, by which the universe is regulated. But
is the universe so regulated ? We note that this very
objection, which was confidently relied on a few years
back by many opponents of the emancipation of the
working-classes, is not heard of in that connection now !
Our learned economists and men of science, who set
themselves to play the defenders of the social status quo,
have seen their own weapons of "natural selection,"
" survival of the fittest," and what not, snatched from
their hands and turned against them, and are therefore
beginning to explain to us, in a scientific manner, what
we untutored humanitarians had previously felt to be
true, viz., that competition is not by any means the
sole governing law among the human race. We are not
greatly dismayed, then, to find the same old bugbear
trotted out as an argument against animals' rights —
indeed, we see already unmistakable signs of a similar
complete reversal of the scientific judgment.^
^ See Prince Kropotkine's articles on " Mutual Aid among Ani-
mals," " Nineteenth Century," 1890, where the conclusion is ar-
rived at that ' ' sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual
struggle." A similar view is expressed in the " Study of Animal
Life," 1892, by J. Arthur Thomson. "What we must protest
against," he says, in an interesting chapter on " The Struggle of
Life," " is that one-sided interpretation according to which indi-
vidualistic competition is nature's sole method of progress; . . .
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 21
The charge of ^' sentimentalism " is frequently
brought against those who plead for animals' rights.
Now '' sentimentalism," if any meaning at all can
be attached to the word, must signify an inequality,
an ill balance of sentiment, an inconsistency which leads
men into attacking one abuse, while they ignore or con-
done another where a reform is equally desirable. That
this weakness is often observable among ^' philanthro-
pists " on the one hand, and '' friends of animals" on
the other, and most of all among those acute " men of
the world," whose regard is only for themselves, I am
not concerned to deny ; what I wish to point out is,
that the only real safeguard against sentimentality is to
take up a consistent position towards the rights of men
and of the lower animals alike, and to cultivate a broad
sense of universal justice (not " mercy ") for all living
things. Herein, and herein alone, is to be sought the
true sanity of temperament.
It is an entire mistake to suppose that the rights of ^
animals are in any way antagonistic to the rights of ;
men. Let us not be betrayed for a moment into the
specious fallacy that we must study human rights first,
and leave the animal question to solve itself hereafter ;
for it is only by a wide and disinterested study of both
subjects that a solution of either is possible. ^' For he
who loves all animated nature," says Porphyry, "will
not hate any one tribe of innocent beings, and by how
The precise nature of the means employed and ends attained must
be carefully considered when we seek from the records of animal
evolution support or justification for human conduct."
22 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
much greater his love for the whole, by so much the
more will he cultivate justice towards a part of them,
and that part to which he is most allied." To omit all
worthier reasons, it is too late in the day to suggest the
indefinite postponement of a consideration of animals'
rights, for from a moral point of view, and even from a
legislative point of view, we are daily confronted with
this momentous problem, and the so-called ''practical "
people who affect to ignore it are simply shutting their
eyes to facts which they find it disagreeable to con-
front.
Once more then, animals have rights, and these
rights consist in the '' restricted freedom" to Hve a
natural life — a life, that is, which permits of the indi-
vidual development — subject to the limitations imposed
by the permanent needs and interests of the community.
There is nothing quixotic or visionary in this assertion ;
it is perfectly compatible with a readiness to look the
sternest laws of existence fully and honestly in the face.
If we must kill, whether it be man or animal, let us kill
and have done with it ; if we must inflict pain, let us
do what is inevitable, without hypocrisy, or evasion, or
cant. But (here is the cardinal point) let us first be
assured that it is necessary ; let us not wantonly trade
on the needless miseries of other beings, and then at-
tempt to lull our consciences by a series of shuffling ex-
cuses which cannot endure a moment's candid investi-
gation. As Leigh Hunt well says :
" That there is pain and evil, is no rule
That I should make it greater, like a fool."
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 23
Thus far of the general principle of animals' rights.
We will now proceed to apply this principle to a num-
ber of particular cases, from which we may learn some-
thing both as to the extent of its present violation, and
the possibility of its better observance in the future.
CHAPTER II.
THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS.
The main principle of animals' rights, if admitted to
be fundamentally sound, will not be essentially affected
by the wildness or the domesticity, as the case may be,
of the animals in question ; both classes have their rights,
though these rights may differ largely in extent and im-
portance. It is convenient, however, to consider the
subject of the domestic animals apart from that of the
wild ones, inasmuch as their whole relation to mankind
is so much altered and emphasized by the fact of their
subjection. Here, at any rate, it is impossible, even for
the most callous reasoners, to deny the responsibility of
man, in his dealings with vast races of beings, the very
conditions of whose existence have been modified by
human civilization.
An incalculable mass of drudgery, at the cost of incal-
culable suffering, is daily, hourly performed for the bene-
fit of man by these honest, patient labourers in every
town and country of the world. Are these countless
services to be permanently ignored in a community
which makes any pretension to a humane civilization ?
Will the free citizens of the enlightened republics of the
future be content to reap the immense advantages of
THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 25
animals' labour, without recognizing that they owe them
some consideration in return ? The question is one that
carries with it its own answer. Even now it is nowhere
openly contended that domestic animals have no rights. ^
But the human mind is subtle to evade the full sig-
nificance of its duties, and nowhere is this more con-
spicuously seen than in our treatment of the lower races.
Given a position in which man profits largely (or thinks
he profits largely, for it is not always a matter of cer-
tainty) by the toil or suffering of the animals, and our
respectable moralists are pretty sure to be explaining to
us that this providential arrangement is ' ' better for the
animals themselves. ' ' The wish is father to the thought
in these questions, and there is an accommodating elas-
ticity in our social ethics that permits of the justification
of almost any system which it would be inconvenient to
us to discontinue. Thus we find it stated, and on the
authority of a bishop, that man may "lay down the
terms of the social contract between animals and him-
self," because, forsooth, "the general life of a domestic
animal is one of very great comfort — according to the
animal's own standard {sic) probably one of almost per-
fect happiness." ^
Now this prating about " the animal's own standard "
is nothing better than hypocritical cant. If man is
obliged to lay down the terms of the contract, let him
^ Auguste Comte included the domestic animals as an organic
part of the Positivist conception of humanity.
■■* "Moral Duty towards Animals," " Macmillan's Magazine,"
April, 1882, by the then Bishop of Carlisle.
26 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
at least do so without having recourse to such a sus-
piciously opportune afterthought. We have taken the
animals from a free, natural state, into an artificial
thraldom, in order that we, and not they, may be the
gainers thereby ; it cannot possibly be maintained that
they owe us gratitude on this account, or that this
alleged debt may be used as a means of evading the
just recognition of their rights. It is the more necessary
to raise a strong protest against this Jesuitical mode of
reasoning, because, as we shall see, it is so frequently
employed in one form or another by the apologists of
human tyranny.
On the other hand, I desire to keep clear also of the
extreme contrary contention, that man is not morally
justified in imposing any sort of subjection on the lower
animals. 1 An abstract question of this sort, however
interesting as a speculation, and impossible in itself to
disprove, is beyond the scope of the present inquiry,
which is primarily concerned with the state of things at
present existing. We must face the fact that the ser-
vices of domestic animals have become, whether rightly
or wrongly, an integral portion of the system of modern
society ; we cannot immediately dispense with those
services, any more than we can dispense with human
labour itself. But we can provide, as at least a present
^ See Lewis Gompertz' "Moral Inquiries" (1824), where it is
argued that " at least in the present state of society it is unjust,
and considering the unnecessary abuse they suffer from being in
the power of man, it is wrong to use them, and to encourage their
being placed in his power."
THE CASE OE DOMESTIC ANIMALS, 2/
Step towards a more ideal relationship in the future, that
the conditions under which all labour is performed,
whether by men or by animals, shall be such as to en-
able the worker to take some appreciable pleasure in the
work, instead of experiencing a lifelong course of injus-
tice and ill-treatment.
And here it may be convenient to say a word as to
the existing line of demarcation between the animals
legally recognized as *' domestic," and those /^r<^ na-
tiii^cB, of wild nature. In the Act of 1849, i^ which a
penalty is imposed for cruelty to ''any animal," it is
expressly provided that " the word aiti?fial ^hdX\ be taken
to mean any horse, mare, gelding, bull, ox, cow, heifer,
steer, calf, mule, ass, sheep, lamb, hog, pig, sow, goat,
dog, cat, or any other domestic animal." It will be
shown in a later chapter that the interpretation of this
vague reference to ''any other" domestic animal is
likely to become a point of considerable importance
since it closely affects the welfare of certain animals
which, though at present regarded as wild, and therefore
outside the pale of protection, are to all intents and
purposes in a state of domestication. For the present,
however, we may group the domestic animals of this
country in three main divisions, (i) horses, asses, and
mules; (2) oxen, sheep, goats, and pigs ; (3) dogs and
cats.
" Food, rest, and tender usage," are declared by
Humphry Primatt, the old author already quoted, to be
the three rights of the domestic animals. Lawrence's
opinion is to much the same effect. " Man is indis-
28 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
pensably bound," he thinks, ''to bestow upon animals,
in return for the benefit he derives from their services,
good and sufficient nourishment, comfortable shelter,
and merciful treatment ; to commit no wanton outrage
upon their feelings, whilst alive, and to put them to the
speediest and least painful death, when it shall be neces-
sary to deprive them of life." But it is important to
note that something more is due to animals, and espe-
cially to domestic animals, than the mere supply of prov-
ender and the mere immunity from ill-usage. " We
owe justice to men," wrote Montaigne, '' and grace and
benignity to other creatures that are capable of it ; there
is a natural commerce and mutual obligation betwixt
them and us." Sir Arthur Helps admirably expressed
this sentiment in his well-known reference to the duty of
*' using courtesy to animals." ^
If these be the rights of domestic animals, it is pitiful
to reflect how commonly and how grossly they are vio-
lated. The average life of our '' beasts of burden," the
horse, the ass, and the mule, is from beginning to end a
rude negation of their individuality and intelligence ;
they are habitually addressed and treated as stupid in-
struments of man's will and pleasure, instead of the
highly-organized and sensitive beings that they are.
Well might Thoreau, the humanest and most observ-
ant of naturalists, complain of man's " not educating
the horse, not trying to develop his nature, but mere-
ly getting work out of him; " for such, it must be
acknowledged, is the prevalent method of treatment,
^ " Animals and their Masters," p. loi.
THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 29
in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, at the pres-
ent day, even where there is no actual cruelty or ill-
usage.^
We are often told that there is no other western
country where tame animals are so well treated as in
England, and it is only necessary to read the records of
a century back to see that the inhumanities of the past
were far more atrocious than any that are still practised
in the present. Let us be thankful for these facts, as
showing that the current of English opinion is at least
moving in the right direction. But it must yet be said
that the sights that everywhere meet the eye of a
humane and thoughtful observer, whether in town or
country, are a disgrace to our vaunted '^ civiUzation,"
and suggest the thought that, as far as the touch of
compassion is concerned, the majority of our fellow-
citizens must be obtuse, not to say pachydermatous.
Watch the cab traffic in one of the crowded thorough-
fares of one of our great cities — always the same lugu-
brious patient procession of underfed overloaded an-
imals, the same brutal insolence of the drivers, the same
accursed sound of the whip. And remembering that
these horses are gifted with a large degree of sensibility
^ The representative of an English paper lately had a drive
with Count Tolstoi. On his remarking that he had no whip, the
Count gave him a glance " almost of scorn," and said, " I talk to
my horses ; I do not beat them." That this story should have
gone the round of the press, as a sort of marvellous legend of a
second St. Francis, is a striking comment on the existing state of
affairs.
30 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
and intelligence, must one not feel that the fate to
which they are thus mercilessly subjected is a shameful
violation of the principle which moralists have laid
down?
Yet it is to this fate that even the well-kept horses of
the rich must in time descend, so to pass the declining
years of a life devoted to man's service! ''A good
man," said Plutarch, '' will take care of his horses and
dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and
past service. We ought certainly not to treat living
beings like shoes and household goods, which, when
worn out with use, we throw away." Such was the
feeling of the old pagan writer, and our good Christians
of the present age scarcely seem to have improved on it.
True, they do not ' '■ throw away ' ' their superannuated
carriage-horses — it is so much more lucrative to sell
them to the shopman or cab-proprietor, who will in
due course pass them on to the knacker and cat's-meat
man.
The use of machinery is often condemned, on aesthe-
tic grounds, because of the ugliness it has introduced
into so many features of modern life. On the other
hand, it should not be forgotten that it has immensely
relieved the huge mass of animal labour, and that when
electricity is generally used for purposes of traction, one
of the foulest blots on our social humanity is likely to
disappear. Scientific and mechanical invention, so far
from being necessarily antagonistic to a true beauty of
life, may be found to be of the utmost service to it,
when they are employed for humane, and not merely
THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 3 1
commercial, purposes. Herein Thoreau is a wiser
teacher than Ruskin. '' If all were as it seems," he
says,^ " and men made the elements their servants
for noble ends ! If the cloud that hangs over the en-
gine were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or as be-
neficent as that which floats over the farmer's fields,
then the elements and Nature herself would cheer-
fully accompany men on their errands and be their
escort."
It is no part of my purpose to enumerate the various
acts of injustice of which domestic animals are the
victims ; it is sufficient to point out that the true cause
of such injustice is to be sought in the unwarrantable
neglect of their many intelligent qualities, and in the
contemptuous indifference which, in defiance of sense
and reason, still classes them as ^' brute-beasts." What
has been said of horses in this respect applies still more
strongly to the second class of domestic animals. Sheep,
goats, and oxen are regarded as mere ' ' live-stock ; ' '
while pigs, poultry, rabbits, and other marketable
''farm-produce," meet with even less consideration,
and are constantly treated with very brutal inhumanity
by their human possessors.^ Let anyone who doubts
this pay a visit to a cattle-market, and study the scenes
that are enacted there.
The question of the castration of animals may here
be briefly referred to. That nothing but imperative
1 " Walden."
^ Further remarks on this subject belong more properly to the
Food Question, which is treated in Chapter IV.
32 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
necessity could justify such a practice must I think be
admitted ; for an unnatural mutilation of this kind is
not only gainful in itself, but deprives those who un-
dergo it of the most vigorous and spirited elements of
their character. It is said — with what precise amount of
truth I cannot pretend to determine — that man would
not otherwise be able to maintain his dominion over the
domestic animals; but on the other hand it may be
pointed out that this dominion is in no case destined to
be perpetuated in its present sharply-accentuated form,
and that various practices which, in a sense, are '' neces-
sary" now, — /.<?., in the false position and relationship
in which we stand towards the animals, — will doubtless
be gradually discontinued under the humaner system of
the future. Moreover, castration as performed on cat-
tle, sheep, pigs, and fowls, with no better object than
to increase their size and improve their flavour for the
table, is, even at the present time, utterly needless and
unjustifiable. ^^ The bull," as Shelley says, '' must be
degraded into the ox, and the ram into the wether, by
an unnatural and inhuman operation, that the flaccid
fibre may offer a fainter resistance to rebellious nature."
In all its aspects, this is a disagreeable subject, and one
about which the majority of people do not care to
think — probably from an unconscious perception that
the established custom could scarcely survive the critical
•^ordeal of thought.
There remains one other class of domestic animals,
viz., those who have become still more closely associated
with mankind through being the inmates of their homes.
THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 33
The dog is probably better treated on the whole than
any other animal ; ^ though to prove how far we still
are from a rational and consistent appreciation of his
worth, it is only necessary to point to the fact that he
is commonly regarded by a large number of educated
people as a fit and proper subject for that experimental
torture which is known as vivisection. The cat has
always been treated with far less consideration than the
dog, and, despite the numerous scattered instances that
might be cited to the contrary, it is to be feared that De
Quincey was in the main correct, when he remarked
that "the groans and screams of this poor persecuted
race, if gathered into some great echoing hall of hor-
rors, would melt the heart of the stoniest of our race."
The institution of "Homes" for lost and starving
dogs and cats is a welcome sign of the humane feeling
that is asserting itself in some quarters ; but it is also
no less a proof of the general indifferentism which can
allow the most familiar domestic animals to become
homeless.
It may be doubted, indeed, whether the condition of
the household " pet " is, in the long run, more enviable
than that of the "beast of burden." Pets, like kings'
favourites, are usually the recipients of an abundance
of sentimental affection but of little real kindness ; so
much easier it is to give temporary caresses than substan-
tial justice. It seems to be forgotten, in a vast majority of
^ The use of dogs for the purposes of draught was prohibited in
London in 1839, ^'^^ i^"^ 1^54 ^^^^ enactment was extended to the
whole kingdom.
3
34 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
cases, that a domestic animal does not exist for the mere
idle amusement, any more than for the mere com-
mercial profit, of its human owner ; and that for a
living being to be turned into a useless puppet is only
one degree better than to be doomed to the servitude of
a drudge. The injustice done to the pampered lap-
dog is as conspicuous, in its way, as that done to the
over-worked horse, and both spring from one and the
same origin — the fixed belief that the life of a ^' brute "
has no ''moral purpose," no distinctive personality
worthy of due consideration and development. In a
society where the lower animals were regarded as in-
telhgent beings, and not as animated machines, it would
be impossible for this incongruous absurdity to con-
tinue.
This, then, appears to be our position as regards the
rights of domestic animals. Waiving, on the one hand,
the somewhat abstruse question whether man is morally
justified in utilizing animal labour at all, and on the other
the fatuous assertion that he is constituting himself a
benefactor by so doing, we recognize that the services of
domestic animals have, by immemorial usage, become
an important and, it may even be said, necessary element
in the economy of modern life. It is impossible, unless
every principle of justice is to be cast to the winds, that
the due requital of these services should remain a matter
of personal caprice ; for slavery is at all times hateful
and iniquitous, whether it be imposed on mankind or on
the lower races.
Apart from the universal rights they jDossess in com-
THE CASE OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 35
mon with all intelligent beings, domestic animals have
a special claim on man's courtesy and sense of fairness,
inasmuch as they are not his fellow -creatures only, but
his fellow- workers, his dependents, and in many cases
the familiar associates and trusted inmates of his home^
CHAPTER III.
THE CASE OF WILD ANIMALS.
That wild animals, no less than domestic animals,
have their rights, albeit of a less positive character and
far less easy to define, is an essential point which fol-
lows directly from the acceptance of the general prin-
ciple of a jus animaliimi. It is of the utmost impor-
tance to emphasize the fact that, whatever the legal fiction
may have been, or may still be, the rights of animals
are not morally dependent on the so-called rights of
property ; it is not to owned animals merely that we
must extend our sympathy and protection.
The domination of property has left its trail indelibly
on the records of this question. Until the passing of
*' Martin's Act" in 1822, the most atrocious cruelty,
even to domestic animals, could only be punished where
there was proved to be an infringement of the rights
of ownership.^ This monstrous iniquity, so far as re-
lates to the domestic animals, has now been removed ;
but the only direct legal protection yet accorded to wild
animals (except in the Wild Birds' Protection Act of
1880) is that which prohibits their being baited or
^ See the excellent remarks on this subject in Mr. E. B. Nichol-
son's " The Rights of an Animal " (ch. III.).
THE CASE OF WILD ANIMALS. 37
pitted in conflict ; otherwise, it is open for anyone to
kill or torture them with impunity, except where the
sacred privileges of '^ property " are thereby offended.
'' Everywhere," it has been well said, ''it is absolutely
a capital crime to be an unowned creature."
Yet surely an unowned creature has the same right
as another to live his life unmolested and uninjured ex-
cept when this is in some way inimical to human wel-
fare. We are justified by the strongest of all instincts,
that of self-defence, iii safe-guarding ourselves against
such a multiplication of any species of animal as might
imj3eril the established supremacy of man ; but we are
not justified in unnecessarily killing — still less in tortur-
ing— any harmless beings whatsoever. In this respect
the position of wild animals, in their relation to man,
is somewhat analogous to that of the uncivilized towards
the civilized nations. Nothing is more difficult than to
determine precisely to what extent it is morally per-
missible to interfere with the autonomy of savage tribes
— an interference which seems in some cases to conduce
to the general progress of the race, in others to foster the
worst forms of cruelty and injustice ; but it is beyond
question that savages, like other people, have the right
to be exempt from all wanton insult and degradation.
In the same way, while admitting that man is justified,
by the exigencies of his own destiny, in asserting his
supremacy over the wild animals, we must deny him any
right to turn his protectorate into a tyranny, or to inflict
one atom more of subjection and pain than is absolutely
unavoidable. To take advantage of the sufferings of
38 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
animals, whether wild or tame, for the gratification of
sport, or gluttony, or fashion, is quite incompatible with
any possible assertion of animals' rights. We may kill,
if necessary, but never torture or degrade.
"The laws of self-defence," says an old writer,^
** undoubtedly justify us in destroying those animals who
would destroy us, who injure our properties or annoy our
persons ; but not even these, whenever their situation
incapacitates them from hurting us. I know of no right
which we have to shoot a bear on an inaccessible island of
ice, or an eagle on the mountain's top, whose lives can-
not injure us, nor deaths procure us any benefit. We are
unable to give life, and therefore ought not to take it away
from the meanest insect without sufficient reason."
I reserve, for fuller consideration in subsequent chap-
ters, certain problems which are suggested by the whole-
sale slaughter of wild animals by the huntsman or the
trapper, for purposes which are loosely supposed to be
necessary and inevitable. Meantime a word must be
said about the condition of those tamed or caged ani-
mals which, though wild by nature, and not bred in
captivity, are yet to a certain extent " domesticated "
— a class which stands midway between the true do-
mestic and the wild. Is the imprisonment of such ani-
mals a violation of the principle we have laid down ?
In most cases I fear this question can only be answered
in the affirmative.
And here, once more I must protest against the com-
' " On Cruelty to the Inferior Animals," by Soame Jenyns,
1782.
THE CASE OF WILD ANIMALS. 39
mon assumption that these captive animals are laid under
an obligation to man by the very fact of their captivity,
and that therefore no complaint can be made on the
score of their loss of freedom and the many miseries in-
volved therein ! It is extraordinary that even humane
thinkers and earnest champions of animals' rights, should
permit themselves to be misled by this most fallacious
and flimsy line of argument. '' Harmful animals," says
one of these writers,^ " and animals with whom man has
to struggle for the fruits of the earth, may of course be
so shut up : they gain by it, for otherwise they would
not have been let live. ' '
And so in like manner it is sometimes contended that
a menagerie is a sort of paradise for wild beasts, whose
loss of liberty is more than compensated by the absence
of the constant apprehension and insecurity which, it is
conveniently assumed, weigh so heavily on their spirits.
But all this notion of their " gaining by it " is in truth
nothing more than a mere arbitrary supposition ; for, in
the first place, a speedy death may, for all we know, be
very preferable to a protracted death-in-life ; while, sec-
ondly, the pretence that wild animals enjoy captivity is
even more absurd than the episcopal contention^ that the
life of a domestic animal is '•^ one of very great comfort,
according to the animal's own standard."
To take a wild animal from its free natural state, full
of abounding egoism and vitality, and to shut it up for
the wretched remainder of its life in a cell where it has
just space to turn round, and where it necessarily loses
^ Mr. E. B. Nicholson. ^ See p. 25.
40 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
every distinctive feature of its character — this appears
to me to be as downright a denial as could well be
imagined of the theory of animals' rights. ^ Nor is there
very much force in the plea founded on the alleged sci-
entific value of these zoological institutions, at any rate
in the case of the wilder and less tractable animals, for it
cannot be maintained that the establishment of wild-
beast shows is in any way necessary for the advancement
of human knowledge. For what do the good people see
who go to the gardens on a half-holiday afternoon to
poke their umbrellas at a blinking eagle-owl, or to throw
dog-biscuits down the expansive throat of a hippopota-
mus ? Not wild beasts or wild birds certainly, for there
never have been or can be such in the best of all possible
menageries, but merely the outer semblances and simu-
lacra of the denizens of forest and prairie — poor spiritless
remnants of what were formerly wild animals. To kill
and stuff these victims of our morbid curiosity, instead
of immuring them in lifelong imprisonment, would be at
once a humaner and a cheaper method, and could not
possibly be of less use to science.^
' I subjoin a sentence, copied by me from one of the note-books
of the late James Thomson (" B.V.") : "It being a very wet Sun-
day, I had to keep in, and paced much prisoner-like to and fro my
room. This reminded me of the wild beasts at Regent's Park,
and especially of the great wild birds, the vultures and eagles.
How they must suffer ! How long will it be ere the thought of
such agonies becomes intolerable to the public conscience, and wild
creatures be left at liberty when they need not be killed ? Three
or four centuries, perhaps."
' Unfortunately they are not of much value even for that pur-
THE CASE OF WILD ANIMALS. 4 1
But of course these remarks do not apply, with any-
thing Uke the same force, to the taming of such wild
animals as are readily domesticated in captivity, or
trained by man to some intelligible and practical pur-
pose. For example, though we may look forward to the
time when it will not be deemed necessary to convert
wild elephants into beasts of burden, it must be acknowl-
edged that the exaction of such service, however ques-
tionable in itself, is very different from condemning an
animal to a long term, of useless and deadening imbecil-
ity. There can be no absolute standard of morals in
these matters, whether it be human liberty or animal lib-
erty that is at stake ; I merely contend that it is as in-
cumbent on us to show good reason for curtailing the
one as the other. This would be at once recognised,
but for the prevalent habit of regarding the lower ani-
mals as devoid of moral purpose and individuality.
The caging of wild song-birds is another practice
which deserves the strongest reprobation. It is often
pleaded that the amusement given by these unfortunate
prisoners to the still more unfortunate human prisoners
of the sick-room, or the smoky city, is a justification for
their sacrifice ; but surely such excuses rest only on
habit — habitual inability or unwillingness to look facts
pose, owing- to the deterioration of health and vigour caused by
their imprisonment. "The skeletons of aged carnivora," says
Dr. W. B. Carpenter, "are often good for nothing as museum
specimens, their bones being rickety and distorted." Could there
be a more convincing proof than this of the inhumanity of these
exhibitions ?
42 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
in the face. Few invalids, I fancy, would be greatly
cheered by the captive life that hangs at their window,
if they had fully considered how blighted and sterilized
a life it must be. The bird-catcher's trade and the
bird-catcher's shop are alike full of horrors, and they
are horrors which are due entirely to a silly fashion and
a habit of callous thoughtlessness, not on the part of the
ruffianly bird-catcher (ruffianly enough, too often,) who
has to bear the burden of the odium attaching to these
cruelties, but of the respectable customers who buy capt-
ured larks and linnets without the smallest scruple or
consideration.
Finally, let me point out that if we desire to cultivate
a closer intimacy with the wild animals, it must be an
intimacy based on a genuine love for them as living
beings and fellow -creatures, not on the superior power
or cunning by which we can drag them from their
native haunts, warp the whole purpose of their lives,
and degrade them to the level of pets, or curiosities, or
labour-saving automata. The key to a proper under-
standing of the wild, as of the tame, animals must al-
ways lie in such sympathies — sympathies, as Wordsworth
describes them,
" Aloft ascending, and descending deep,
Even to the inferior Kinds ; whom forest trees
Protect from beating sunbeams and tlie sweep
Of the sharp winds ; fair Creatures, to whom Heaven
A calm and sinless life, with love, has given."
CHAPTER IV.
THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD.
It is impossible that any discussion of the principle of
animals' rights can be at all adequate or conclusive
which ignores, as many so-called humanitarians still
ignore, the immense underlying importance of the food
question. The origin of the habit of flesh-eating need
not greatly concern us ; let us assume, in accordance
with the most favoured theory, that animals were first
slaughtered by the uncivilized migratory tribes under
the stress of want, and that the practice thus engen-
dered, being fostered by the religious idea of blood-
offering and propitiation, survived and increased after
the early conditions which produced it had passed
away. What is more important to note, is that the
very prevalence of the habit has caused it to be re-
garded as a necessary feature of modern civilization,
and that this view has inevitably had a marked effect,
and a very detrimental effect, on the study of man's
moral relation to the lower animals.
Now it must be admitted, I think, that it is a difii-
cult thing consistently to recognise or assert the rights
of an animal on whom you propose to make a meal, a
44 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
difficulty which has not been at all satisfactorily sur-
mounted by those moralists who, while accepting the
practice of flesh-eating as an institution which is itself
beyond cavil, have nevertheless been anxious to find
some solid basis for a theory of humaneness. '' Strange
contrariety of conduct," says Goldsmith's '' Chinese
Philosopher," in commenting on this dilemma; " they
pity, and they eat the objects of their compassion ! "
There is also the further consideration that the sanction
implicitly given to the terrible cruelties inflicted on
harmless cattle by the drover and the slaughterman ren-
der it, by parity of reasoning, well-nigh impossible to
abolish many other acts of injustice that we see every-
where around us; and this obstacle the opponents of
humanitarian reform have not been slow to utilise.^
Hence a disposition on the part of many otherwise
humane writers to fight shy of the awkward subject of
the slaughterhouse, or to gloss it over with a series of
contradictory and quite irrelevant excuses.-
Let me give a few examples. '^ We deprive animals
of life," says Bentham, in a delightfully naive applica-
^ Here are two instances urged on behalf of the vivisector and
the sportsman respectively. " If man can legitimately put animals
to a painful death in order to supply himself with food and luxu-
ries, why may he not also legitimately put them to pain, and even
to death, for the higher object of relieving the sufferings of hu-
manity ? " — Chambers s Eiicyclopcedia^ 1884.
" If they were called upon to put an end to pigeon-shooting,
they might next be called upon to put an end to the slaughter of
live-stock." — Lord Fortescue, Debate on Pigeon- Shooting
(1884).
THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD. 45
tion of the utilitarian philosophy, '^ and this is justifi-
able ; their pains do not equal our enjoyments."
" By the scheme of universal providence," says Law-
rence, '' the services between man and beast are in-
tended to be reciprocal, and the greater part of the
latter can by no other means requite human labour and
care than by the forfeiture of life."
Schopenhauer's plea is somewhat similar to the fore-
going : '' Man deprived of all flesh food, especially in
the north, would suffer more than the animal suffers in
a swift and unforeseen death ; still we ought to miti-
gate it by the help of chloroform."
Then there is the argument so frequently founded on
the supposed sanction of Nature. ' ' My scruples, ' ' wrote
Lord Chesterfield, ''remained unreconciled to the com-
mitting of so horrid a meal, till upon serious reflection
I became convinced of its legality from the general order
of Nature, which has instituted the universal preying
upon the weaker as one of her first principles. ' '
Finally, we find the redoubtable Paley discarding as
valueless the whole appeal to Nature, and relying on the
ordinances of Holy Writ. '' A right to the flesh of
animals. Some excuse seems necessary for the pain and
loss which we occasion to animals by restraining them of
their liberty, mutilating their bodies, and at last putting
an end to their lives for our pleasure or convenience.
The reasons alleged in vindication of this practice are the
following : that the several species of animals being cre-
ated to prey upon one another affords a kind of analogy
to prove that the human species were intended to feed
46 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
upon them. . , . Upon which reason I would observe
that the analogy contended for is extremely lame, since
animals have no power to support life by any other means,
and since we have, for the whole human species might
subsist entirely upon fruit, pulse, herbs, and roots, as
many tribes of Hindus actually do. ... It seems to
me that it would be difficult to defend this right by any
arguments which the light and order of Nature afford, and
that we are beholden for it to the permission recorded in
Scripture. ' '
It is evident from the above quotations, which might
be indefinitely extended, that the fable of the Wolf and
the Lamb is constantly repeating itself in the attitude of
our moralists and philosophers towards the victims of the
slaughter-house ! Well might Humphry Primatt remark
that " we ransack and rack all nature in her weakest and
tenderest parts, to extort from her, if possible, any con-
cession whereon to rest the appearance of an argument. ' '
Far wiser and humaner, on this particular subject, is
the tone adopted by such writers as Michelet, who, while
not seeing any way of escape from the practice of flesh -
eating, at least refrain from attempting to support it by
fallacious reasonings. ''The animals below us," says
Michelet, " have also their rights before God. Animal
life, sombre mystery ! Immense world of thoughts and
of dumb sufferings ! All nature protests against the bar-
barity of man, who misapprehends, who humiliates, who
tortures his inferior brethren. . . . Life — death.
The daily murder which feeding upon animals implies —
those hard and bitter problems sternly placed themselves
THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD. 4^
before my mind. Miserable contradiction ! Let us hope
that there may be another globe in which the base, the
cruel fatalities of this may be spared to us." ^
Meantime, however, the simple fact remains true, and
is every year finding more and more scientific corrobo-
ration, that there is no such "cruel fatality" as that
which Michelet imagined. Comparative anatomy has
shown that man is not carnivorous, but frugivorous, in
his natural structure ; experience has shown that flesh-
food is wholly unnecessary for the support of healthy
life. The importance of this more general recognition of
a truth which has in all ages been familiar to a few en-
lightened thinkers, can hardly be over-estimated in its
bearing on the question of animals' rights. It clears
away a difficulty which has long damped the enthusiasm,
or warped the judgment, of the humaner school of
European moralists, and makes it possible to approach
the subject of man's moral relation to the lower animals
in a more candid and fearless spirit of enquiry. It is
no part of my present purpose to advocate the cause of
vegetarianism ; but in view of the mass of evidence,
readily obtainable,'^ that the transit and slaughter of
animals are necessarily attended by most atrocious cruel-
ties, and that a large number of persons have for years
been living healthily without the use of flesh-meat, it
^ " La Bible de rHumanite."
^ From any of the following- societies : The Vegetarian Society,
75, Princess Street, Manchester ; the London Vegetarian Society,
Memorial Hall, E. C. ; the National Food Reform Society, 13,
Rathbone Place, W.
H
48 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
must at least be said that to omit this branch of the sub-
ject from the most earnest and strenuous consideration is
playing with the question of animals' rights. Fifty or a
hundred years ago, there was perhaps some excuse for
supposing that vegetarianism w^as a mere fad j there is
absolutely no such excuse at the present time.
There are two points of especial significance in this
connection. First, that as civilisation advances, the
cruelties inseparable from the slaughtering system have
been aggravated rather than diminished, owing both to
the increased necessity of transporting animals long
distances by sea and land, under conditions of hurry and
hardship which generally preclude any sort of humane
regard for their comfort, and to the clumsy and barbar-
ous methods of slaughtering too often practised in those
ill-constructed dens of torment known as '■'■ private
slaughter-houses." ^
Secondly, that the feeling of repugnance caused among
all people of sensibility and refmement by the sight, or
mention, or even thought, of the business of the butcher
are also largely on the increase ; so that the details of
the revolting process are, as far as possible, kept carefully
out of sight and out of mind, being delegated to a pa-
riah class who do the work which most educated persons
would shrink from doing for themselves. In these two
facts we have clear evidence, first that there is good rea-
^ If any reader thinks there is exaggeration in this statement,
let him study (i) " Cattle Ships," by Samuel Plimsoll, Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner and Co., i8go ; (2) "Behind the Scenes in
Slaughter-Houses," by H. F. Lester, Wm. Reeves, 1892.
THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD. 49
son why the pubhc conscience, or at any rate the hu-
manitarian conscience, should be uneasy concerning the
slaughter of "live-stock," and secondly that this unea-
siness is already to a large extent developed and mani-
fested.
The common argument, adopted by many apologists
of flesh-eating, as of fox-hunting, that the pain inflicted
by the death of the animals is more than compensated
by the pleasure enjoyed by them in their life-time, since
otherwise they would not have been brought into exist-
ence at all, is ingenious rather than convincing, being
indeed none other than the old familiar fallacy already
commented on — the arbitrary trick of constituting our-
selves the spokesmen and the interpreters of our victims.
Mr. E. B. Nicholson, for example, is of opinion that
'' we may pretty safely take it that if he [the fox] were
able to understand and answer the question, he would
choose life, with all its pains and risks, to non-existence
without them." ^ Unfortunately for the soundness of
this suspiciously partial assumption, there is no recorded
instance of this strange alternative having ever been sub-
mitted either to fox or philosopher ; so that a precedent
has yet to be established on which to found a judgment.
Meantime, instead of committing the gross absurdity of
talking of non-existence as a state which is good, or bad,
or in any way comparable to existence, we might do well
to remember that animals' rights, if we admit them at
all, must begin with the birth, and can only end with
the death, of the animals in question, and that we can-
^ " The Rights of an x'Vnimal," 1879.
4
50 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
not evade our just responsibilities by any such quibbling
references to an imaginary ante-natal choice in an imag-
inary ante-natal condition.
The most mischievous effect of the practice of flesh-
eating, in its influence on the study of animals' rights
at the present time, is that it so stultifies and debases the
very i'aiso?t d' etre of countless myriads of beings — it
brings them into life for no better purpose than to deny
their right to live. It is idle to appeal to the interne-
cine warfare that we see in some aspects of wild nature,
where the weaker animal is often the prey of the stronger,
for there (apart from the fact that co-operation largely
modifies competition) the weaker races at least hve their
own lives and take their chance in the game, whereas
the victims of the human carnivora are bred, and fed,
and from the first predestined to untimely slaughter, so
that their whole mode of living is warped from its nat-
ural standard, and they are scarcely more than animated
beef or mutton or pork. This, I contend, is a flagrant
violation of the rights of the lower animals, as those
rights are now beginning to be apprehended by the hu-
maner conscience of mankind. It has been well said
that '' to keep a man (slave or servant) for your own ad-
vantage merely, to keep an animal that you may eat it,
is a lie. You cannot look that man or animal in the
face." 1
That those who are aware of the horrors involved in
slaughtering, and also aware of the possibility of a flesh-
less diet, should think it sufficient to oppose ' ' scriptural
^ Edward Carpenter, " England's Ideal."
THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD. 5 1
permission ' ' as an answer to the arguments of food-
reformers is an instance of the extraordinary power of
custom to bHnd the eyes and the hearts of otherwise hu-
mane men. The following passage is quoted from a
" Plea for Mercy to Animals," ^ as a typical instance of
the sort of perverted sentiment to which I allude. " Not
in superstitious India only," says the writer, whose ideas
of what constitutes "superstition" seem to be rather
confused, ''but in this country, there are vegetarians,
and other persons, who object to the use of animal food,
not on the ground of health only, but as involving a
power to which man has no right. To such statements
we have only to oppose the clear permission of the di-
vine Author of Hfe. But the unquahfied permission
can never give sanction to the infliction of unnecessary
pain."
But if the use of flesh-meat can itself be dispensed '
with, how can it be argued that the pain, which is in-
separable from slaughtering, can be otherwise than un-
necessary also ? I trust that the cause of humanity and
"justice" (not "mercy") to the lower animals is not
likely to be retarded by any such sentimental and super-
stitious objections as these !
Reform of diet will doubtless be slow, and attended
in many individual cases with its difficulties and draw-
backs. But at least we may lay down this much as in-
cumbent on all humanitarian thinkers — that everyone
must satisfy himself of the necessity, the real necessity,
of the use of flesh-food, before he comes to any intellect-
' By J. Macaulay, (Partridge and Co., i8Si).
52 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
ual conclusion on the subject of animals' rights. It is
easy to see that, as the question is more and more dis-
cussed, the result will be more and more decisive.
^^ Whatever my own practice may be," wrote Thoreau,
' '■ I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the
human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off
eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off
eating each other when they came in contact with the
more civilized."
CHAPTER V.
SPORT, OR AMATEUR BUTCHERY.
That particular form of recreation which is euphemis-
tically known as " sport " has a close historical connec-
tion with the practice of flesh-eating, inasmuch as the
hunter was in old times what the butcher is now, — the
''purveyor" on whom the family was dependent for its
daily supply of victuals. Modern sport, however, as
usually carried on in civilised European countries, has de-
generated into what has been well described as ' ' ama-
teur butchery," a system under which the slaughter of
certain kinds of animals is practised less as a necessity
than as a means of amusement and diversion. Just as
the youthful nobles, during the savage scenes and repri-
sals of the Huguenot wars, used to seize the opportunity
of exercising their swordsmanship, and perfecting them-
selves in the art of dealing graceful death-blows, so the
modern sportsman converts the killing of animals from a
prosaic and perhaps distasteful business into an agreeable
and gentlemanly pastime.
Now, on the very face of it, this amateur butchery is,
in one sense, the most wanton and indefensible of all
possible violations of the principle of animals' rights.
If animals — or men, for that matter — have of necessity
54 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
to be killed, let them be killed accordingly ; but to seek
one's own amusement out of the death-pangs of other
beings, this is saddening stupidity indeed ! Wisely did
Wordsworth inculcate as the moral of his '' Hartleap
Well,"
" Never to blend our pleasure or our pride,
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."
But the sporting instinct is due to sheer callousness and
insensibility; the sportsman, by force of habit, or by
force of hereditary influence, cannot understand or sym-
pathize with the sufferings he causes, and being, in the
great majority of instances, a man of slow perception,
he naturally finds it much easier to follow the hounds
than to follow an argument. And here, in his chief
blame, lies also his chief excuse ; for it may be said of
him, as it cannot be said of certain other tormentors,
that he really does not comprehend the import of what
he is doing. Whether this ultimately makes his position
better or worse, is a point for the casuist to decide.
That '^ it would have to be killed anyhow " is a truly
deplorable reason for torturing any animal whatsoever ;
it is an argument which would equally have justified the
worst barbarities of the Roman amphitheatre. To exf
terminate wolves, and other dangerous species, may, in-
deed, at certain places and times, be necessary and jus-
tifiable enough. But the sportsman nowadays will not
even perform this practical service of exterminating such
animals — the fox, for example — as are noxious to the
general interests of the community ; on the contrary, he
SPORT, OR AMATEUR BUTCHERY. 55
*' preserves " them (note the unintended humour of the
term !), and then, by a happy afterthought, claims the
gratitude of the animals themselves for his humane and
benevolent interposition.^ In plain words, he first under-
takes to rid the country of a pest, and then, finding the
process an enjoyable one to himself, he contrives that it
shall never be brought to a conclusion. Prometheus
had precisely as much reason to be grateful to the vult-
ure for eternally gnawing at his liver, as have the hunted
animals to thank the predaceous sportsmen who ''pre-
serve " them. Let me once more enter a protest against
the canting Pharisaism which is afraid to take the just
responsibility of its own selfish pleasure-seeking.
''What name should we bestow," said a humane
essayist of the eighteenth century,^ " on a superior being
who, without provocation or advantage, should continue
from day to day, void of all pity and remorse, to tor-
ment mankind for diversion, and at the same time en-
deavour with the utmost care to preserve their lives and
to propagate their species, in order to increase the num-
ber of victims devoted to his malevolence, and be de-
lighted in proportion to the miseries which he occa-
sioned ? I say, what name detestable enough could we
find for such a being ? Yet, if we impartially consider
the case, and our intermediate situation, we must ac-
^ I copy the following typical argument from a recent article in a
London paper. "If we stay fox-hunting — which sport makes
something of some of us — foxes will die far more brutal deaths in
cruel vermin-traps, until there are none left to die."
'^ Soame Jenyns, 1782.
$6 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
knowledge that, with regard to the inferior animals, just
such a being is the sportsman. ' '
The excuses alleged in favour of English field-sports
in general, and of hunting in particular, are for the
most part as irrelevant as they are unreasonable. It is
often said that the manliness of our national character
would be injuriously affected by the discontinuance of
these sports — a strange argument, when one considers
the very unequal, and therefore unmanly, conditions of
the strife. But, apart from this consideration, what
right can we possess to cultivate these personal qualities
at the expense of unspeakable suffering to the lower
races ? Such actions may be pardonable in a savage, or
in a schoolboy in whom the savage nature still largely
predominates, but they are wholly unworthy of a civil-
ised and rational man.
As for the nonsense sometimes talked about the bene-
ficial effect of those field-sports which bring men into
contact with the sublimities of nature, I will only repeat
what I have elsewhere said on this subject, that ''the
dynamiters who cross the ocean to blow up an English
town might on this principle justify the object of their
journey by the assertion that the sea-voyage brought them
in contact with the exalting and ennobling influence
of the Atlantic." ^
^ As further example of the stuff to which the apologists of sport
are reduced in their search for an argument, the following may be
cited. " For what object was given the scent of the hound, and
the exultation with which he abandons himself to the chase? If
he were not thus employed, for what valuable purpose could he be
used?"
SPORT, OR AMATEUR BUTCHERY. 5/
As the case stands between the sportsman and his vic-
tims, there cannot be much doubt as to whence the ben-
efits proceed, and from which party the gratitude is
due. " Woe to the ungrateful ! " says Michelet. " By
this phrase I mean the sporting crowd, who, unmindful
of the numerous benefits we owe to the animals, exter-
minate innocent life. A terrible sentence weighs on the
tribes of sportsmen — they can create nothing. They
originate no art, no industry. . . • It is a shock-
ing and hideous thing to see a child partial to sport ;
to see woman enjoying and admiring murder, and en-
couraging her child. That delicate and sensitive wom-
an would not give him a knife, but she gives him a
gun."
The sports of hunting and coursing are a brutality
which could not be tolerated for a day in a state which
possessed anything more than the mere name of justice,
freedom, and enlightenment. " Nor can they compre-
hend," says Sir Thomas More of his model citizens in
'' Utopia," '' the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a hare
more than of seeing one dog run after another ; for if
the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you
have the same entertainment to the eye on both these
occasions, since that is the same in both cases ; but if
the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and torn by
the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak,
harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong,
fierce, and cruel dogs."
To be accurate, the zest of sport lies neither in the
running nor the kilhng, as such, but in the excitement
58 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
caused by the fact that a Hfe (some one else's Hfe) is at
stake, that the pursuer is matched in a fierce game of
hazard against the pursued. The opinion has been ex-
pressed, by one well qualified to speak with authority on
the subject, that '' well-laid drags, tracked by experts,
would test the mettle both of hounds and riders to
hounds, but then a terrified, palpitating, fleeing Hfe
would not be struggling ahead, and so the idea is not
pleasing to those who find pleasure in blood." ^
The case is even worse when the quarry is to all
intents and purposes domesticated, an animal wild by
nature, but by force of circumstances and surroundings
tame. Such are the Ascot stags, the victims of the
Royal Sport, which is one of the last and least justifi-
able relics of feudal barbarism.^ I would here remark
that there is urgent need that the laws which relate to
the humane treatment of animals should be amended,
or more wisely interpreted, on this particular point, so
as to afford immediate protection to these domesticated
stags, whose torture, under the name and sanction of the
Crown and the State, has been long condemned by the
public conscience. Bear-baiting and cock-fighting have
now been abolished by legal enactment, and it is high
time that the equally demoralising sport of hunting of
tame stags should be relegated to the same category.^
^ " The Horrors of Sport," by Lady Florence Dixie, 1892.
2 See " Royal Sport, some Facts concerning the Queen's Buck-
hounds," by the Rev. J. Stratton.
^ As long ago as 1877 a prosecution for the torture of a hind by
the Royal Buckhounds was instituted by the Society for the Pre-
SPORT, OR AMATEUR BUTCHERY. 59
The same must be said of some sports which are
practised by the EngHsh working-man — rabbit-coursing,
in particular, that half-hoUday diversion which is so
popular in many villages of the north. ^ An attempt is
often made by the apologists of amateur butchery to
play off one class against another in the discussion of
this question. They protest, on the one hand, against
any interference with aristocratic sport, on the plea that
working men are no less addicted to such pastimes ;
and, on the other hand, a cry is raised against the un-
fairness of restricting the amusements of the poor, while
noble lords and ladies are permitted to hunt the carted
stag with impunity.
The obvious answer to these quibbling excuses is that
all such barbarities, whether practised by rich or poor,
are alike condemned by any conceivable principle of
justice and humaneness ; and, further, that it is a doubt-
ful compliment to working men to suggest that they
have nothing better to do in their spare hours than to
torture defenceless rabbits. It was long ago remarked
by Martin, the author of the famous Act of 1822, that
vention of Cruelty to Animals. The hind was worried for more
than an hour by six hounds, and fearfully mutilated. But though
a dozen eye-witnesses were forthcoming, and the skin of the
animal was in possession of the Society (it may be seen to this day
at the office in Jermyn Street), the case was dismissed by the mag-
istrates on the absurd ground that a stag is fe7'(£ naturce, and all
evidence and argument were thus purposely shut out. See the
" Animal World " for June ist, 1877.
' See " Rabbit-Coursing, an Appeal to Working Men," by Dr.
R. H. Jude, 1892.
60 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
such an argument indicates at bottom a contempt rather
than regard for the working classes ; it is as much as to
say, " Poor creatures, let them alone — they have few-
amusements — let them enjoy them."
Nothing can be more shocking than the treatment
commonly accorded to rabbits, rats, and other small
animals, on the plea that they are '' vermin," and there-
fore, it is tacitly assumed, outside the pale of humanity
and justice ; we have here another instance of the way
in which the application of a contemptuous name may
aggravate and increase the actual tendency to barbarous
ill-usage. How many a demoralising spectacle, espe-
cially where the young are concerned, is witnessed when
^' fun " is made out of the death and torture of "ver-
min ! " How horrible is the practice, apparently uni-
versal throughout all country districts, of setting steel
traps along the ditches and hedgerows, in which the
victims are frequently left to linger, in an agony of pain
and apprehension, for hours or even days ! If the
lower races have any rights soever, here surely is a
flagrant and inexcusable outrage on such rights. Yet
there are no means of redressing these barbarities, be-
cause the laws, such as they are, which prohibit cruelty
to animals, are not designed to take any cognizance of
" vermin."
All that has been said of hunting and coursing is
apphcable also — in a less degree, perhaps, but on exactly
the same principle — to the sports of shooting and fishing.
It does not in the least matter, so far as the question of
animals' rights is concerned, whether you run your victim
SPORT, OR AMATEUR BUTCHERY. 6 1
to death with a pack of yelping hounds, or shoot him
with a gun, or drag him from his native waters by a hook ;
the point at issue is simply whether man is justified in
inflicting any form of death or suffering on the lower
races for his mere amusement and caprice. There can
be little doubt what answer must be given to this ques-
tion.
In concluding this chapter, let me quote a striking tes-
timony to the wickedness and injustice of sport, as ex-
hibited in one of its most refined and fashionable forms
the '' cult of the pheasant."
'' For what is it," says Lady Florence Dixie, ^ '' but
the deliberate massacre in cold blood every year of thou-
sands and tens of thousands of tame, hand-reared birds,
who are literally driven into the jaws of death and mown
down in a peculiarly brutal manner ? . . . A per-
fect roar of guns fills the air, louder tap and yell the beat-
ers, above the din can be heard the heart-rendering cries
of wounded hares and rabbits, some of which can be seen
dragging themselves away, with both hind legs broken,
or turning round and round in their agony before they
die. And the pheasants ! They are on every side, some
rising, some dropping, some lying dead, but the greater
majority fluttering on the ground wounded, some with
both legs broken and a wing, some with both wings
broken and a leg, others merely winged, running to
hide, others mortally wounded gasping out their last
breath of life amidst the fiendish sounds which sur-
round them. And this is called sport!
^ Letter to " Pall Mall Gazette," March 24th, 1892.
62 ANIMALS' RIGHTS,
Sport in every form and kind is horrible, from the rich
man's hare-coursing to the poor man's rabbit-cours-
ing. All show the ' tiger ' that lives in our natures,
and which nothing but a higher civilisation will eradi-
cate."
CHAPTER VI.
MURDEROUS MILLINERY.
We have seen what a vast amount of quite preventable
suffering is caused through the agency of the slaughter-
man, who kills for a business, and of the sportsman who
kills for a pastime, the victims in either case being re-
garded as mere irrational automata, with no higher des-
tiny than to satisfy the most artificial wants or the most
cruel caprices of mankind. A few words must now be
said about the fur and feather traffic — the slaughter of
mammals and birds for human clothing or human orna-
mentation— a subject connected on the one hand with
that of flesh-eating, and on the other, though to a less de-
gree, with that of sport. What I shall say will of course
have no reference to wool, or any other substance which
is obtainable without injury to the animal from which it
is taken.
It is evident that in this case, as in the butcher-
ing trade, the responsibility for whatever wrongs
are done must rest ultimately on the class which de-
mands an unnecessary commodity, rather than on that
which is compelled by economic pressure to supply it ;
it is not the man who kills the bird, but the lady who
wears the feathers in her hat, who is the true offender.
64 ANIMALS' RIGHTS,
But here it will be asked, is the use of fur and leathers
unnecessary ? Now of course if we consider solely the
present needs and tastes of society, in regard to these
matters, it must be admitted that a sudden, unexpected
withdrawal of the numberless animal products on which
our ''civilisation" depends would be a very serious
embarrassment ; the world, as alarmists point out to us,
might have to go to bed without candles, and wake up
to find itself without boots. It must be remembered,
however, that such changes do not come about with
suddenness, but, on the contrary, with the extremest
slowness imaginable ; and a little thought will suggest,
what experience has already in many cases confirmed,
that there is really no indispensable animal substance
for which a substitute cannot be provided, when once
there is sufficient demand, from the vegetable or mineral
kingdom.
Take the case of leather, for instance, a material
which is in almost universal use, and may, under pres-
ent circumstances, be fairly described as a necessary.
What should we do without leather? was, in fact, a
question very frequently asked of vegetarians during the
early and callow years of the food-reform movement,
until it was found that vegetable leather could be suc-
cessfully employed in bootmaking, and that the incon-
sistency of which vegetarians at present stand convicted
is only a temporary and incidental one. Now of course,
so long as oxen are slaughtered for food, their skins will
be utilized in this way ; but it is not difficult to foresee
that the gradual discontinuance of the habit of flesh-eat-
MURDEROUS MILLINERY. 6^
ing will lead to a similar gradual discontinuance of the
use of hides, and that human ingenuity will not be at a
loss in the provision of a substitute. So that it does not
follow that a commodity which, in the immediate sense,
is necessary now, would be absolutely or permanently
necessary, under different conditions, in the future.
My sole reason for dwelling on this typical point is
that I wish to guard myself, by anticipation, against a
very plausible argument, by which discredit is often cast
on the whole theory of- animals' rights. What can be
the object, it is said, of entering on the sentimental path
of an impossible humanitarianism, which only leads into
insurmountable difficulties and dilemmas, inasmuch as
the use of these various animal substances is so interwo-
ven with the whole system of society that it can never be
discontinued until society itself comes to an end? I as-
sert that the case is by no means so desperate — that it is
easy to make a right beginning now, and to foresee the
lines along which future progress will be effected. Much
that is impossible in our own time may be realized, by
those who come after us, as the natural and inevitable
outcome of reforms which it now lies with us to inaugu-
rate.
This said, it may be freely admitted that, at the out-
set, humanitarians will do well to draw a practical dis-
tinction between such animal products as are converted
to some genuine personal use, and those which are sup-
plied for no better object than to gratify the idle whims
of luxury or fashion. The when and the where are con-
siderations of the greatest import in these questions.
5
66 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
There is a certain iitness in the hunter — himself the
product of a rough, wild era in human development —
assuming the skins of the wild creatures he has conquered ;
but it does not follow because an Eskimo, for example,
may appropriately wear fur, or a Red Indian feathers,
that this apparel will be equally becoming to the inhabi-
tants of London or New York \ on the contrary, an act
which is perfectly natural in the one case, is often a sign
of crass vulgarity in the other. Hercules, clothed tri-
umphant in the spoils of the Nemean lion, is a subject
for painter and poet ; but what if he had purchased the
skin, ready dressed, from a contemporary manufacturer ?
What we must unhesitatingly condemn is the blind
and reckless barbarism which has ransacked, and is
ransacking, whole provinces and continents, without a
glimmer of suspicion that the innumerable birds and
quadrupeds which it is rapidly exterminating have any
other part or purpose in nature than to be sacrificed to
human vanity, that idle gentlemen and ladies may be-
deck themselves, like certain characters in the fable, in
borrowed skins and feathers. What care they for all the
beauty and tenderness and intelligence of the varied
forms of animal life? What is it to them whether
these be helped forward by man in the universal progress
and evolution of all living things, or whether whole
species be transformed and degraded by the way — boiled
down, like the beaver, into a hat, or, like the seal, into
a lady's jacket ? ^
^ It is stated of the fur-seal of Alaska {callorhinus tirsimis) that
"there is no known animal, on land or water, which can take
MURDEROUS MILL/. VERY. 6/
Whatever it may be in other respects, the fur trade,
in so far as it is a supply of ornamental clothing for
those who are under no necessity of wearing fur at all,
is a barbarous and stupid business. It makes patch-
work, one may say, not only of the hides of its victims,
but of the conscience and intellect of its supporters. A
fur garment or trimming, we are told, appearing to the
eye as if it were one uniform piece, is generally made up
of many curiously shaped fragments. It is significant
that a society which is enamoured of so many shams and
fictions, and which detests nothing so strongly as the
need of looking facts in the face, should pre-eminently
esteem those articles of apparel which are constructed on
the most deceptive and illusory principle. The story
of the Ass in the Lion's skin is capable, it seems, of a
new and wider application.
But if the fur trade gives cause for serious reflection,
what are we to say of the still more abominable trade in
feathers? Murderous, indeed, is the millinery which
finds its most fashionable ornament in the dead bodies
of birds — birds, the loveliest and most blithesome be-
ings in Nature ! There is a pregnant remark made by a
writer in the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica," that ''to
enumerate all the feathers used for ornamental purposes
would be practically to give a complete list of all known
and obtainable birds." The figures and details pub-
lished by those humane writers who have raised an una-
higher physical rank, or which exhibits a higher order of instinct,
closely approaching human intelligence." — Chambers' Journal^
Nov. 27th, 1886.
6S A NIDI A LS' RIGHTS.
vailing protest against this latest and worst crime of
Fashion are simply appalling in their stern and naked
record of unremitting cruelty.
'' One dealer in London is said to have received as a
single consignment 32,000 dead humming-birds, 80,000
aquatic birds, and 800,000 pairs of wings. A Parisian
dealer had a contract for 40,000 birds, and an army of
murderers were turned out to supply the order. No less
than 40,000 terns have been sent from Long Island in
one season for millinery purposes. At one auction alone
in London there were sold 404,389 West Indian and
Brazilian bird-skins, and 356,389 East Indian, besides
thousands of pheasants and birds-of-paradise. " ^ The
meaning of such statistics is simply that the women of
Europe and America have given an order for the ruth-
less extermination of birds. ^
It is not seriously contended in any quarter that this
wholesale destruction, effected often in the most revolt-
ing and heartless manner,-^ is capable of excuse or justi-
fication ; yet the efforts of those who address themselves
to the better feelings of the offenders appear to meet
with little or no success. The cause of this failure must
undoubtedly be sought in the general lack of any clear
^ Quoted from "As in a Mirror, an Appeal to the Ladies of
England."
■^ " You kill a paddy-bird," says an Indian proverb, " and what
do you get? A handful of feathers." Unfortunately commerce
has now taught the natives of India that a handful of feathers is
not without its value.
^ See the publications issued by the Society for the Protection of
Birds, 29, Warwick Road, Maida Vale, W.
MURDEROUS MILLINERY. 69
conviction that animals have rights ; and the evil will
never be thoroughly remedied until not only this partic-
ular abuse, but all such abuses, and the prime source
from which such abuses originate, have been subjected
to an impartial criticism.^
In saying this I do not of course mean to imply that
special efforts should not be directed against special
cruelties. I have already remarked that the main re-
sponsibility for the daily murders which fashionable
millinery is instigating, must lie at the doors of those
^ It is well that ladies should pledge themselves to a rule of not
wearing feathers ; but that is an ominous exception which permits
them to wear the feathers of birds killed for food. It is to such
inconsistencies that an anonymous satirist makes reference in the
following lines :
" When Edwin sat him down to dine one night,
With piteous grief his heart was newly stricken ;
In vain did Angelina him invite,
Grace said, to carve the chicken.
" ' A thousand songsters slaughtered in one day ;
Oh, Angelina, meditate upon it ;
And henceforth never, never wear, I pray,
A redbreast in thy bonnet.'
" Fair Angelina did not scold nor scowl ;
No word she spake, she better knew her lover ;
But from the ample dish of roasted fowl
She gently raised the cover.
" And lo ! the savour of that tender bird
The tender Edwin's appetite did quicken.
He started, by a new emotion stirred, I
Said grace, and carved the chicken." J
"JO ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
who demand, rather than those who supply, these
hideous and funereal ornaments. Unfortunately the
process, like that of slaughtering cattle, is throughout
delegated to other hands than those of the ultimate pur-
chaser, so that it is exceedingly difficult to bring home
a due sense of blood -guiltiness to the right person.
The confirmed sportsman, or amateur butcher, at
least sees with his own eyes the circumstances attendant
on his '■'■ sport ; " and the fact that he feels no compunc-
tion in pursuing it, is due, in most cases, to an obtuse-
ness or confusion of the moral faculties. But many of
those who wear seal-skin mantles, or feather-bedaubed
bonnets are naturally humane enough ; they are misled
by pure ignorance or thoughtlessness, and would at once
abandon such practices if they could be made aware of
the methods employed in the wholesale massacre of seals^
or humming-birds. Still, it remains true that all these
questions ultimately hang together, and that no complete
solution will be found for any one of them until the
whole problem of our moral relation towards the lower
animals is studied with far greater comprehensiveness.
For this reason it is perhaps unscientific to assert that
any particular form of cruelty to animals is worse, than
another form ; the truth is, that each of these hydra-
heads, the offspring of one parent stem, has its own
proper characteristic, and is different, not worse or bet-
ter than the rest. To flesh-eating belongs the proud
distinction of causing a greater bulk of animal suffering
than any other habit whatsoever ; to sport, the meed of
unique and unparalleled brutality ; while the patrons of
MURDEROUS MILLINERY. "J I
murderous millinery afford the most marvellous instance
of the capacity the human mind possesses for ignoring
its personal responsibilities. To re-apply Keats's words ;
" For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
And went all naked to the hungry shark ;
For them his ears gush'd blood ; for them in death
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts ; for them alone did seethe
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark ;
Half ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel,
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel."
CHAPTER VII.
EXPERIMENTAL TORTURE.
Great is the change when we turn from the easy
thoughtless indifferentism of the sportsman or the mil-
liner to the more determined and deliberately chosen
attitude of the scientist — so great, indeed, that by many
people, even among professed champions of animals'
rights, it is held impossible to trace such dissimilar lines
of action to one and the same source. Yet it can be
shown, I think, that in this instance, as in those already
examined, the prime cause of man's injustice to the
lower animals is the belief that they are mere automata,
devoid alike of spirit, character, and individuality ;
only, while the ignorant sportsman expresses this con-
tempt through the medium of the battue, and the milli-
ner through that of the bonnet, the more seriously-
minded physiologist works his work in the " experimen-
tal torture ' ' of the laboratory. The difference lies in
the temperament of the men, and in the tone of their
profession ; but in their denial of the most elementary
rights of the lower races, they are all inspired and insti-
gated by one common prejudice.
The analytical method employed by modern science
tends ultimately, in the hands of its most enlightened
EXPERIMENTAL TORTURE. 73
exponents, to the recognition of a close relationship
between mankind and the animals ; but incidentally it
has exercised a most sinister effect on the study of the
jits a7iimaliuin among the mass of average men. For
consider the dealings of the so-called naturalist with the
animals whose nature he makes it his business to observe !
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, he is wholly un-
appreciative of the essential distinctive quality, the
individuality, of the subject of his investigations, and
becomes nothing more than a contented accumulator of
facts, an industrious dissector of carcases. " I think
the most important requisite in describing an animal,"
says Thoreau, '' is to be sure that you give its character
and spirit, for in that you have, without error, the sum
and effect of all its parts known and unknown. Surely
the most important part of an animal is its anima, its
vital spirit, on which is based its character and all the
particulars by which it most concerns us. Yet most
scientific books which treat of animals leave this out
altogether, and what they describe are, as it were,
phenomena of dead matter."
The whole system of our '^ natural history " as prac-
tised at the present time, is based on this deplorably
partial and misleading method. Does a rare bird alight
on our shores ? It is at once slaughtered by some enter-
prising collector, and proudly handed over to the nearest
taxidermist, that it may be '^ preserved," among a num-
ber of other stuffed corpses, in the local '' Museum."
It is a dismal business at best, this science of the fowl-
ing-piece and the dissecting-knife, but it is in keeping
74 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
with the materiahstic tendency of a certain school of
thought, and only a few of its professors rise out of it,
and above it, to a maturer and more far-sighted under-
standing. ''The child," says Michelet, ''disports
himself, shatters, and destroys ; he finds his happiness
in tmdoing. And science, in its childhood, does the
same. It cannot study unless it kills. The sole use
which it makes of a living mind is, in the first place, to
dissect it. None carry into scientific pursuits that
tender reverence for life which Nature rewards by un-
veiling to us her mysteries."
Under these circumstances, it is scarcely to be won-
dered at that modern scientists, their minds athirst for
further and further opportunities of satisfying this ana-
lytical curiosity, should desire to have recourse to the
experimental torture which is euphemistically described
as "vivisection." They are caught and impelled by
the overmastering passion of knowledge ; and, as a
handy subject for the gratification of this passion, they
see before them the helpless race of animals, in part
wild, in part domesticated, but alike regarded by the
generality of mankind as incapable of possessing any
"rights." They are practically accustomed (despite
their ostensible disavowal of the Cartesian theory) to
treat these animals as automata — things made to be
killed and dissected and catalogued for the advance-
ment of knowledge ; they are, moreover, in their pro-
fessional capacity, the lineal descendants of a class of
men who, however kindly and considerate in other
respects, have never scrupled to subordinate the strong-
EXP E RIME jVTAL TORTURE. 75
est promptings of humaneness to the least of the sup-
posed interests of science.^ Given these conditions, it
seems as inevitable that the physiologist should vivisect
as that the country gentleman should shoot. Experi-
mental torture is as appropriately the study of the
half-enlightened man as sport is the amusement of the
half-witted.
But the fact that vivisection is not, as some of its
opponents would appear to regard it, a portentous, un-
accountable phenomenon, but rather the logical outcome
of a certain ill-balanced habit of mind, does not in any
way detract from its intellectual and moral loathsome-
ness. It is idle to spend a single moment in advocating
the rights of the lower animals, if such rights do not
include a total and unqualified exemption from the
awful tortures of vivisection — from the doom of being
slowly and mercilessly dismembered, or flayed, or baked
alive, or infected with some deadly virus, or subjected
* Vivisection is an ancient usage, having been practised for
2,000 years or more, in Egypt, Italy, and elsewhere. Human
vivisection is mentioned by Galen as having been fashionable for
centuries before his day, and Celsus informs us that " they pro-
cured criminals out of prison, and, dissecting them alive, contem-
plated, while they were yet breathing, what nature had before
concealed." The sorcerers, too, of the Middle Ages tortured both
human beings and animals, with a view to the discovery of their
medicinal elixirs. The recognition of the rights of men has now
made human vivisection criminal, and the scientific inquisition of
the present time counts animals alone as its victims. And here
the Act of 1876 has fortunately, though not sufficiently, restricted
the powers of the vivisector in Great Britain.
76 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
to any of the numerous modes of torture inflicted by the
Scientific Inquisition. Let us heartily endorse the
words of Miss Cobbe on this crucial subject, that '' the
minimum of all possible rights plainly is — to be spared
the worst of all possible wrongs ; and if a horse or dog
have no claim to be spared from being maddened and
mangled after the fashion of Pasteur and Chauveau, then
it is impossible it can have any right at all, or that
any offence against it, by gentle or simple, can deserve
punishment. ' '
It is necessary to speak strongly and unmistakably on
this point, because, as I have already said, there is a
disposition on the part of some of the ''friends of ani-
mals ' ' to palter and compromise with vivisection, as if
the alleged ''utility" of its practices, or the "consci-
entious ' ' motives of its professors, put it on an alto-
gether different footing from other kinds of inhumanity.
" Much against my own feelings," wrote one of these
backsliders,^ " I do see a warrant for vivisection in the
case of harmful animals, and animals which are man's
rivals for food. If an animal is doomed to be killed on
other grounds, the vivisector, when its time comes, may
step in, buy it, kill it in his own way, and take without
self-reproach the gain to knowledge which he can get
from its death. And my ' sweet is life ' theory would
further allow of animals being specially bred for vivi-
section— where and where only they would other-
wise not have been bred at all. ' ' This astounding argu-
ment, which assumes the necessity of vivisection, gives
1 " The Rights of an Animal," by E. B. Nicholson, 1879.
EXPERIMENTAL TORTURE. //
away, it will be observed, the whole case of animals'
rights.
The assertion, commonly made by the apologists of
the Scientific Inquisition, that vivisection is justified by
its utility — that it is, in fact, indispensable to the ad-
vance of knowledge and civilization ^ — is founded on a
mere half-view of the position ; the scientist, as I have
already remarked, is a half-enlightened man. Let us
assume (a large assumption, certainly, controverted as it
is by some most weighty medical testimony) that the
progress of surgical science is assisted by the experiments
of the vivisector. What then ? Before rushing to the
conclusion that vivisection is justifiable on that account,
a wise man will take into full consideration the other,
the moral side of the question — the hideous injustice of
torturing an innocent animal, and the terrible wrong
thereby done to the humane sense of the community.
The wise scientist and the wise humanist are identical.
A true science cannot possibly ignore the solid incontro-
vertible fact, that the practice of vivisection is revolting
to the human conscience, even among the ordinary
members of a not over-sensitive society. The so-called
^ The medical argument of " utility " has always been held in
tein'orem over the unscientific assertion of animals' rights. Por-
phyry, writing in the third century, quotes the following from
Claudius the Neapolitan, author of a treatise against abstinence
from animal food. " How many will be prevented from having
their diseases cured, if animals are abstained from ! For we see
that those who are blind recover their sight by eating a viper. "
Some of the results that scientists "see" nowadays may appear
equally strange to posterity I
7S ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
' ' science ' ' (we are compelled unfortunately, in common
parlance, to use the word in this specialized technical
meaning) which deliberately overlooks this fact, and
confines its view to the material aspects of the problem,
is not science at all, but a one-sided assertion of the
views which find favour with a particular class of men.
Nothing is necessary which is abhorrent, revolting,
intolerable, to the general instincts of humanity. Better
a thousand times that science should forego or postpone
the questionable advantage of certain problematical dis-
coveries, than that the moral conscience of the commu-
nity should be unmistakably outraged by the confusion of
right and wrong. The short cut is not always the right
path ; and to perpetrate a cruel injustice on the lower
animals, and then attempt to excuse it on the ground
that it will benefit posterity, is an argument which is as
irrelevant as it is immoral. Ingenious it may be (in the
way of hoodwinking the unwary) but it is certainly in
no true sense scientific.
If there be one bright spot, one refreshing oasis, in
the discussion of this dreary subject, it is the humorous
recurrence of the old threadbare fallacy of ' ' better for
the animals themselves. ' ' Yes, even here, in the labo-
ratory of the vivisector, amidst the baking and sawing
and dissection, we are sometimes met by that familiar
friend — the proud plea of a single-hearted regard for the
interests of the suffering animals ! Who knows but what
some beneficent experimentalist, if only he be permitted
to cut up a sufficient number of victims, may discover
some potent remedy for all the lamented ills of the ani-
EXPERIMENTAL TORTURE, 79
mal as well as of the human creation ? Can we doubt
that the victims themselves, if once they could realize
the noble object of their martyrdom, would vie with
each other in rushing eagerly on the knife ? The only
marvel is that, where the cause is so meritorious, no Jm-
vian volunteer has as yet come forward to die under the
hands of the vivisector ! ^
It is fully admitted that experiments on men would be
far more valuable and conclusive than experiments on
animals ; yet scientists usually disavow any wish to re-
vive these practices, and indignantly deny the rumours,
occasionally circulated, that the poorer patients in hos-
pitals are the subjects of such anatomical curiosity.
Now here, it will be observed, in the case of men, the f ! ,
moi'al ds^toX of vivisection is admitted by the scientist
as a matter of course, yet in the case of animals it is al- . •
lowed no weight whatever ! How can this strange in-
consistency be justified, unless on the assumption that
men have rights, but animals have no rights — in other
words, that animals are mere things, possessed of no
purpose, and no claim on the justice and forbearance
of the community ?
One of the most notable and ominous features in the
apologies offered for vivisection is the assertion, so com-
^ It is true, however, that Lord Aberdare, in presiding over the
last annual meeting of the Royal Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, and in warning the society against entering
on an anti-vivisection crusade, gave utterance to the delightfully
comical remark that he had himself been thrice operated on, and j
was all the better for it ! /
8o ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
monly made by scientific writers, that it is " no worse "
than certain kindred practices. When the upholders of
any accused institution begin to plead that it is " no
worse ' ' than other institutions, we may feel quite as-
sured that the case is a very bad one indeed — it is the
drowning man catching at the last straw and shred of
argument. Thus the advocates of experimental torture
are reduced to the expedient of laying stress on the
cruelties of the butcher and the herdsman, and inquir-
ing why, if pole-axing and castration are permissible,
vivisection may not also be permitted.^ Sport, also, is
a practice which has greatly shocked the susceptibilities
of the humane vivisector. A writer in the '' Fortnight-
ly Review ' ' has defined sport as '■ ' the love of the clever
destruction of living things," and has calculated that
three millions of animals are yearly mangled by English
sportsmen, in addition to those killed outright." ^
Now if the attack on vivisection emanated primarily
or wholly from the apologists of the sportsman and
slaughterer, this tu quoqite of the scientist's must be al-
lowed to be a smart, though rather flippant, retort ; but
when all cruelty is arraigned as inhuman and unjustifi-
able, an evasive answer of this kind ceases to have any
relevancy or pertinence. Let us admit, however, that,
in contrast with the childish brutality of the sportsman,
the undoubted seriousness and conscientiousness of the
vivisector (for I do not question that he acts from con-
' See J. Cotter Morrison's article on " Scientific versus Bucolic
Vivisection," " Fortnightly Review," 1885.
^ Professor Jevons, " Fortnightly Review," 1876.
EXPERIMENTAL TORTURE. 8 1
scientious motives) may be counted to his advantage.
But then we have to remember, on the other hand, that
the conscientious man, when he goes wrong, is far more
dangerous to society than the knave or the fool ; indeed,
the special horror of vivisection consists precisely in this
fact, that it is not due to mere thoughtlessness and igno-
rance, but represents a deliberate, avowed, conscientious
invasion of the very principle of animals' rights.
I have already said that it is idle to speculate which is
the worst form of cruelty to animals, for certainly in this
subject, if anywhere, we must ''reject the lore of nicely
calculated less or more." Vivisection, if there be any
truth at all in the principle for which I am contending,
is not the root, but the fine flower and consummation of
barbarity and injustice — the ne phts ultra of iniquity in
man's dealings with the lower races. The root of the
evil lies, as I have throughout asserted, in that detestable
assumption (detestable equally whether it be based on
pseudo-religious or pseudo-scientific grounds) that there
is a gulf, an impassable barrier, between man and the
animals, and that the moral instincts of compassion,
justice, and love, are to be as sedulously repressed and
thwarted in the one direction as they are to be fostered
and extended in the other.
For this very reason our crusade against the Scientific '^
Inquisition, to be thorough and successful, must be
founded on the rock of consistent opposition to cruelty
in every form and phase ; it is useless to denounce -
vivisection as the source of all inhumanities, and, while ;'
demanding its immediate suppression, to suppose that ^
6
82 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
Other minor questions may be indefinitely postponed.
It is true that the actual emancipation of the lower
races, as of the human, can only proceed step by step,
and that it is both natural and politic to strike first at
what is most repulsive to the public conscience. I am
not depreciating the wisdom of such a concentration of
effort on any particular point, but warning my readers
against the too common tendency to forget the general
principle that underlies each individual protest.
The spirit in which we approach these matters should
be a liberal and far-seeing one. Those who work for
the abolition of vivisection, or any other particular
wrong, should do so with the avowed purpose of captur-
ing one stronghold of the enemy, not because they be-
lieve that the war will then be over, but because they
will be able to use the position thus gained as an ad-
vantageous starting-point for still further progression.
CHAPTER VIII.
LINES OF REFORM.
Having now applied the principle with which we
started to the several cases where it appears to be most
flagrantly overlooked, we are in a better position to
estimate the difficulties and the possibilities of its future
acceptance. Our investigation of animals' rights has
necessarily been, in large measure, an enumeration of
animals' wrongs, a story of cruelty and injustice which
might have been unfolded in far greater and more im-
pressive detail, had there been any reason for here re-
peating what has been elsewhere established by other
writers beyond doubt or dispute.
But my main purpose was to deal with a general
theory rather than with particular instances ; and enough
has already been said to show that while man has much
cause to be grateful to the lower animals for the innu-
merable services rendered by them, he can hardly pride
himself on the record of the counter-benefits which they
have received at his hands. ''If we consider," says
Primatt, '' the excruciating injuries offered on our part
to the brutes, and the patience on their part ; how fre-
quent our provocation, and how seldom their resent-
ment (and in some cases our Aveakness and //z^/r strength,
84 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
our slowness and their swiftness) one would be almost
tempted to suppose that the brutes had combined in one
general scheme of benevolence, to teach mankind lessons
of mercy and meekness by their own forbearance and
longsuffering. ' '
It is unwise, no doubt, to dwell too exclusively on the
wrongs of which animals are the victims ; it is-still more
unwise to ignore them as they are to-day ignored by the
large majority of mankind. It is full time that this
question were examined in the light of some rational and
guiding principle, and that we ceased to drift helplessly
between the extremes of total indifference on the one
hand, and spasmodic, partially-applied compassion on
the other. We have had enough, and too much, of
trifling Math this or that isolated aspect of the subject,
and of playing off the exposure of somebody else's insen-
sibility by way of a balance for our own, as if a tu qiioque
were a sufficient justification of a man's moral delinquen-
cies.
The terrible sufferings that are quite needlessly in-
flicted on the lower animals under the plea of domestic
usage, food-demands, sport, fashion, and science, are
patent to all who have the seeing eye and the feeling
heart to apprehend them ; those sufferings will not be
lessened, nor will man's responsibility be diminished by
any such irrelevant assertions as that vivisection is less
cruel than sport, or sport less cruel than butchering, —
nor yet by the contrary contention that vivisection, or
sport, or flesh-eating, as the case may be, is the one prime
origin of all human inhumanity. We want a compre-
LINES OF REFORM. 85
hensive principle which will cover all these varying in-
stances, and determine the true lines of reform.
Such a principle, as I have throughout insisted, can
only be found in the recognition of the right of animals,
as of men, to be exempt from any unnecessary suffering 1
or serfdom, the right to Hve a natural life of " restricted j
freedom," subject to the real, not supposed or pretended,
requirements of the general community. It may be said, ^
and with truth, that the perilous vagueness of the word
'' necessary ' ' must leave a convenient loop-hole of escape
to anyone who wishes to justify his own treatment of
animals, however unjustifiable that treatment may appear;
the vivisector will assert that his practice is necessary in
the interests of science, the flesh-eater that he cannot
maintain his health without animal food, and so on
through the whole category of systematic oppression.
The difficulty is an inevitable one. No form of words
can be devised for the expression of rights, human or
animal, which is not liable to some sort of evasion ; and *
all that can be done is to fix the responsibihty of deciding
between what is necessary and unnecessary, between fac-
titious personal wants and genuine social demands, on *• t
those in whom is vested the power of exacting the ser- I
vice or sacrifice required. The appeal being thus made,
and the issue thus stated, it may be confidently trusted ^
that the personal conscience of individuals and the pubhc %\
conscience of the nation, acting and reacting in turn on
each other, will slowly and surely work out the only
possible solution of this difficult and many-sided problem.
For that the difficulties involved in this animal ques-
V
S6 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
tion are many and serious, no one, I imagine, would
dispute, and certainly no attempt has been made or will
be made, in this essay to minimise or deny them. It
may suit the purpose of those who would retard all hu-
manitarian progress to represent its advocates as mere
dreamers and sentimentalists — men and women who be-
fool themselves by shutting their eyes to the fierce strug-
gle that is everywhere being waged in the world of
nature, while they point with virtuous indignation to the
iniquities perpetrated by man. But it is possible to be
quite free from any such sentimental illusions, and yet to
hold a very firm belief in the principle of animals' rights.
We do not deny, or attempt to explain away, the exist-
ence of evil in nature, or the fact that the life of the lower
races, as of mankind, is based to a large degree on rapine
and violence ; nor can we pretend to say whether this evil
will ever be wholly amended. It is therefore confessedly
impossible, at the present time, to formulate an entirely
and logically consistent philosophy of rights ; but that
would be a poor argument against grappling with the
subject at all.
The hard unmistakable facts of the situation, when
viewed in their entirety, are not by any means calculated
to inspire with confidence the opponents of humane re-
form. For, if it be true that internecine competition is
a great factor in the economy of nature, it is no less true,
as has been already pointed out, that co-operation is also
a great factor therein. Furthermore, though there are
many difficulties besetting the onward path of humani-
tarianism, an even greater difficulty has to be faced by
LINES OF REFORM, 8/
those who refuse to proceed along that path, viz., the
fact — as strong a fact as any that can be produced on the
other side — that the instinct of compassion and justice to
the lower animals has already been so largely developed
in the human conscience as to obtain legislative recog-
nition. If the theory of animals' rights is a mere ideal-
istic phantasy, it follows that we have long ago commit-
ted ourselves to a track which can lead us no whither.
Is it then proposed that we should retrace our steps, with
a view to regaining the antique position of savage and
consistent callousness ; or are we to remain perpetually
in our present meaningless attitude, admitting the moral
value of a partially awakened sensibility, yet opposing
an eternal non possumus to any further improvement ?
Neither of these alternatives is for a moment conceivable ;
it is perfectly certain that there will still be a forward
movement, and along the same lines as in the past.
Nor need we be at all disconcerted by the derisive en-
quiries of our antagonists as to the final outcome of such
theories. ''There is some reason to hope," said the
author of the ironical '' Vindication of the Rights of
Brutes," '' that this essay will soon be followed by trea-
tises on the rights of vegetables and minerals, and that thus
the doctrine of perfect equaUtywill become universal."
To which suggestion we need only answer, ''Perhaps."
It is for each age to initiate its own ethical reforms, ac-
cording to the light and sensibihty of its own instincts ;
further and more abstruse questions, at present insoluble,
may safely be left to the more mature judgment of pos-
terity. The human conscience furnishes the safest and
88 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
simplest indicator in these matters. We know that cer-
tain acts of injustice affect us as they did not affect our
forefathers — it is our duty to set these right. It is not
our duty to agitate problems, which, at the present date,
excite no unmistakable moral feeling.
The humane instinct will assuredly continue to de-
velope. And it should be observed that to advocate the
rights of animals is far more than to plead for compassion
or justice towards the victims of ill-usage ; it is not only,
and not primarily, for the sake of the victims that we
plead, but for the sake of mankind itself. Our true civ-
ilisation, our race-progress, our humanity (in the best
sense of the term) are concerned in this development ; it
is ourselves, our own vital instincts, that we wrong,
when we trample on the rights of the fellow-beings, hu-
man or animal, over whom we chance to hold jurisdic-
tion. It has been admirably said^ that, 'terrible as is
the lot of the subjects of cruelty and injustice, that of the
perpetrators is even worse, by reason of the debasement
and degradation of character implied and incurred. For
the principles of Humanity cannot be renounced with
impunity ; but their renunciation, if persisted in, in-
volves inevitably the forfeiture of Humanity itself. And
to cease through such forfeiture to be man is to become
demon."
This most important point is constantly overlooked
by the opponents of humanitarian reform. They labour,
unsuccessfully enough, to minimise the complaints of
animals' wrongs, on the plea that these wrongs, though
^ Edward Maitland ; Address to the Humanitarian League.
LINES OF REFORM. 89
great, are not so great as they are represented to be,
and that in any case it is not possible, or not urgently
desirable, for man to alleviate them. As if huma?i
interests also were not intimately bound up in every
such compassionate endeavour ! The case against in-
justice to animals stands, in this respect, on exactly the
same grounds as that against injustice to man, and may
be illustrated by some suggestive words of De Quincey's
on the typical subject of corporal punishment. This
practice, he remarks, ''is usually argued with a single
reference to the case of him who suffers it ; and so
argued, God knows that it is worthy of all abhorrence :
but the weightiest argument against it is the foul indig-
nity which is offered to our common nature lodged in
the person of him on whom it is inflicted."
And this brings us back to the moral of the whole
matter. The idea of Humanity is no longer confined
to man ; it is beginning to extend itself to the lower
animals, as in the past it has been gradually extended to
savages and slaves. '' Behold the animals. There is
not one but the human soul lurks within it, fulfilling its
destiny as surely as within you." So writes the author
of ''Towards Democracy; " and what has long been
felt by the poet is now being scientifically corroborated
by the anthropologist and philosopher. "The stand-
point of modern thought," says Biichner,^ " no longer rec-
ognises in animals a difference of kind, but only a dif-
ference of degree, and sees the principle of intelligence
developing through an endless and unbroken series."
^ " Mind in Animals," translated by Annie Besant.
90 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
It is noteworthy that, on this point, evolutionary
science finds itself in agreement with oriental tradition.
^' The doctrine of metempsychosis/ ' says Strauss/ '' knits
men and beasts together here [in the East], and unites
the whole of Nature in one sacred and mysterious bond.
The breach between the two was opened in the first
place by Judaism, with its hatred of the Gods of Nat-
ure, next by the dualism of Christianity. It is remark-
able that at present a deeper sympathy with the animal
world should have arisen among the more civilized
nations, which manifests itself here and there in socie-
ties for the prevention of cruelty to animals. It is thus
apparent that what on the one hand is the product of
modern science — -the giving up of the spiritualistic isola-
tion of man from Nature — reveals itself simultaneously
through the channel of popular sentiment."
It is not human life only that is lovable and sacred,
but all innocent and beautiful life : the great republic
of the future will not confine its beneficence to man.
The isolation of man from Nature, by our persistent
culture of the ratiocinative faculty, and our persistent
neglect of the instinctive, has hitherto been the penalty
we have had to pay for our incomplete and partial
^' civilization ; " there are many signs that the tendency
will now be towards that ''Return to Nature" of
which Rousseau was the prophet. But let it not for a
moment be supposed that an acceptance of the gospel of
Nature implies an abandonment or depreciation of intel-
lect— on the contrary, it is the assertion that reason itself
1 " The Old Faith and the New," translated by Mathilde Blind.
LINES OF REFORM. 9 1
can never be at its best, can never be truly rational,
except when it is in perfect harmony with the deep-
seated emotional instincts and sympathies which underlie
all thought.
The true scientist and humanist is he who will rec-
oncile brain to heart, and show us how, without any
sacrifice of what we have gained in knowledge, we may
resume what we have temporarily lost during the process
of acquiring that knowledge — the sureness of intuitive
faculty which is originally implanted in men and ani-
mals alike. Only by this return to the common fount
of feeling will it be possible for man to place himself in
right relationship towards the lower animals, and to
break down the fatal barrier of antipathy that he has
himself erected. If we contrast the mental and moral
attitude of the generality of mankind towards the lower
races with that of such men as St. Francis or Thoreau,
we see what far-reaching possibilities still lie before us
on this line of development, and what an immense
extension is even now waiting to be given to our most
advanced ideas of social unity and brotherhood.
I have already remarked on the frequent and not al-
together unjustifiable complaint against "lovers of an-
imals," that they are often indifferent to the struggle for
human rights, while they concern themselves so eagerly
over the interests of the lower races. Equally true is
the converse statement, that many earnest reformers
and philanthropists, men who have a genuine passion
for human liberty and progress, are coldly sceptical or
even bitterly hostile on the subject of the rights of ani-
92 AMIMALS' RIGHTS,
mals. This organic limitation of sympathies must be
recognised and regretted, but it is worse than useless
for the one class of reformers to indulge in blame or re-
crimination against the other. It is certain that they
are both working towards the same ultimate end ; and
if they cannot actually co-operate, they may at least re-
frain from unnecessarily thwarting and opposing each
other.
The principles of justice, if they are to make solid
and permanent headway, must be applied with thorough-
ness and consistency. If there are rights of animals,
there must a fortiori be rights of men ; and, as I have
shown, it is impossible to maintain that an admission
of human rights does not involve an admission of ani-
mals' rights also. Now it may not always fall to the lot
of the same persons to advocate both kinds of rights,
but these rights are, nevertheless, being simultaneously
and concurrently advocated ; and those who are in a
position to take a clear and wide survey of the whole
humanitarian movement are aware that its final success
is dependent on this broad onward tendency. "Man
will not be truly man," says Michelet, "until he shall
labour seriously for that which the earth expects from
him — the pacification and harmonious union of all liv-
ing Nature."
The advent of democracy, imperfect though any
democracy must be which does not embrace all living
"^ things within its scope, will be of enormous assistance
to the cause of animals' rights, for under the present un-
equal and inequitable social system there is no possibil-
LINES OF REFORM. 93
ity of those claims receiving their due share of attention.
In the rush and hurry of a competitive society, where
commercial profit is avowed to be the main object of
work, and where the well-being of men and women is
ruthlessly sacrificed to that object, what likelihood is
there that the lower animals will not be used with a
sole regard to the same predominant purpose ? Humane
individuals may here and there protest, and the growing
conscience of the public may express itself in legislation
against the worst forms of palpable ill-usage, but the
bulk of the people simply cannot, and will not, afford to
treat animals as they ought to be treated. Do the
wealthy classes show any such consideration? Let
''amateur butchery" and ''murderous millinery" be
the answer. Can it be wondered, then, that the
" lower classes," whose own rights are existent far more
in theory than in fact, should exhibit a feeling of stolid
indifference to the rights of the still lower animals ?
It has been said that, " If in a mob of Londoners,
Parisians, New Yorkers, Berliners, Melbourners, a dove
fluttered down to seek a refuge, a hundred dirty hands
would be stretched out to seize it, and wring its neck ;
and if anyone tried to save and cherish it, he would be
rudely bonneted, and mocked, and hustled amidst the
brutal guffaws of roughs, lower and more hideous in
aspect and in nature than any animal which lives." ^
This may be so ; yet it must be remembered that it is
not the people, but the lords, who have hitherto pre-
vented the suppression, in England at any rate, of the
^ Ouida, " Fortnightly Review," April, 1892.
94 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
infamous pastime of pigeon-shooting. It is to the
democracy, and the democratic sense of kinship and
brotherhood, extending first to mankind, and then to
the lower races, that we must look for future progress.
The emancipation of men will bring with it another
and still wider emancipation — of animals.
In conclusion we are brought face to face with this
practical problem — by what immediate means can we
best provide for the attainment of the end we have in
view? What are the surest remedies for the present
wrongs, and the surest pledges for the future rights, of
the victims of human supremacy ? The answer, I think,
must be that there are two pre-eminently important
methods which are sometimes regarded as contradictory
in principle, but which, as I hope to show, are not only
quite compatible, but even mutually serviceable and to
some degree inter-dependent. We have no choice but
to work by one or the other of these methods, and, if
we are wise, we shall endeavour to work by both simul-
taneously, using the first as our chief instrument of re-
form, the second as an auxiliary and supplementary in-
strument. The two methods to which I allude are the
educational and the legislative.
I. Education, in the largest sense of the term, has
always been, and must always remain, the antecedent
and indispensable condition of humanitarian progress.
Very excellent are the words of John Bright on the sub-
ject (let us forget for the nonce that he was an angler).
*' Humanity to animals is a great point. If I were a
teacher in a school, I would make it a very important
LI.VES OF REFORM. 95
part of my business to impress every boy and girl with the
duty of his or her being kind to all animals. It is im-
possible to say how much suffering there is in the world
from the barbarity or unkindness which people show to
what we call the inferior creatures."
It may be doubted, however, whether the young will
ever be specially impressed with the lesson of humanity
as long as the general tone of their elders and instructors
is one of cynical indifference, if not of absolute hostility,
to the recognition of animals' rights.^ It is society as a
whole, and not one class in particular, that needs en-
lightenment and remonstrance ; in fact, the very con-
ception and scope of what is known as a " liberal educa-
tion " must be revolutionized and extended. For if we
find fault with the narrow and unscientific spirit of what
is known as ' ' science, ' ' we must in fairness admit that
our academic ''humanities," the Hterce humaniores of
colleges and schools, together with much of our modern
culture and refinement, are scarcely less deficient in that
quickening spirit of sympathetic brotherhood, without
which all the accomplishments that the mind of man can
devise are as the borrowed cloak of an imperfectly real-
ized civilization, assumed by some barbarous tribe but
half emerged from savagery. This divorce of '' human-
ism " from humaneness is one of the subtlest dangers by
which society is beset; for, if we grant that love needs
^ " They tell children, perhaps, that they must not be cruel to
animals .... what avails all the fine talk about morality, in con-
trast with acts of barbarism and immorality presented to them on
all sides ?"^ — Gustav von Struve.
96 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
to be tempered and directed by wisdom, still more need-
ful is it that wisdom should be informed and vitalized
by love.
It is therefore not only our children who need to be
educated in the proper treatment of animals, but our
scientists, our religionists, our moralists, and our men of
letters. For in spite of the vast progress of humanitarian
ideas during the present century, it must be confessed
that the popular exponents of western thought ^ are still
for the most part quite unable to appreciate the pro-
found truth of those words of Rousseau, which should
form the basis of an enhghtened system of instruction :
'' Hommes, soyez humains ! C'est votre premier de-
voir. Quelle sagesse y a-t-il pour vous, hors de I'hu-
manite ? ' '
But how is this vast educational change to be inau-
gurated— let alone accomplished ? Like all far-reaching
reforms which are promoted by a few believers in the
face of the public indifferentism, it can only be carried
through by the energy and resolution of its supporters.
' Eastern thought has always been far humaner than western,
however deplorably in the East also practicejnay lag- behind pro-
fession. In an interesting book lately published (" Man and Beast
in India," by J. Lockwood Kipling), an extremely unfavourable
account is given of the Hindoo treatment of animals. The alleged
kindness of the natives, says the author, is nothing better than " a
vague reluctance to take life by a sudden positive act," and " does
not preserve the ox, the horse, and the ass from being unmercifully
beaten, over-driven, over-laden, under- fed, and worked with sores
under their harness." But he admits that "a more humane tem-
per prevails with regard to free creatures than in the west."
LINES OF REFORM. 97
The efforts which the various humane societies are now
making in special directions, each concentrating its at-
tack on a particular abuse, must be supplemented and
strengthened by a crusade — an intellectual, literary, and
social crusade— against the central cause of oppression,
viz.: the disregard of the natural kinship between man
and the animals, and the consequent denial of their
rights. We must insist on having the whole question
fully considered and candidly discussed, and must no
longer permit its most important issues to be shirked
because it does not suit the convenience or the preju-
dices of comfortable folk to give attention to them.
Above all, the sense of ridicule that at present attaches
to the supposed ' ' sentimentalism " of an advocacy of
animals' rights must be faced and swept away. The
fear of this absurd charge deprives the cause of humanity
of many workers who would otherwise lend their aid,
and accounts in part for the unduly diffident and apolo-
getic tone which is too often adopted by humanitarians.
We must meet this ridicule, and retort it without hesi-
tation on those to whom it properly pertains. The
laugh must be turned against the true ''cranks" and
''crotchet-mongers" — the noodles who can give no
wiser reason for the infliction of suffering on animals
than that it is "better for the animals themselves" —
the flesh-eaters who labour under the pious belief that
animals were ' ' sent " us as food — the silly women who
imagine that the corpse of a bird is a becoming article
of head-gear — the half-witted sportsmen who vow that
the vigour of the English race is dependent on the
98 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
practice of fox-hunting — and the half-enUghtened scien-
tists who are unaware that vivisection has moral and
spiritual, no less than physical, consequences. That
many of our arguments are mere superficial sword-play,
and do not touch the profound emotional sympathies on
which the cause of humanity rests, is a fact which does
not lessen their controversial significance. For this is a
case where those who take the sword shall perish by the
sword ; and the clever men-of-the-world who twit con-
sistent humanitarians with sickly sentimentality may
perhaps discover that they themselves — fixed as they are
in an ambiguous and utterly untenable position — are the
sickliest sentimentalists of all.
II. Legislation, where the protection of harmless ani-
mals is concerned, is the fit supplement and sequel to
education, and the objections urged against it are for the
most part unreasonable. It must inevitably fail in its
purpose, say some ; for how can the mere passing of a
penal statute prevent the innumerable unwitnessed acts
of cruelty and oppression which make up the great total
of animal suffering ? But the purpose of legislation is
not merely thus preventive. Legislation is the record,
the register, of the moral sense of the community; it
follows, not precedes, the development of that moral
sense, but nevertheless in its turn reacts on it, strength-
ens it, and secures it against the danger of retrocession.
It is well that society should proclaim, formally and de-
cisively, its abhorrence of certain practices ; and I do
not think it can be doubted, by those who have studied
the history of the movement, that the general treatment
LINES OF REFORM. 99
of domestic animals in England, bad as it still is,
would be infinitely worse at this day but for the pro-
gressive and punitive legislation that dates from the
passing of '^ Martin's Act " in 1822.
The further argument, so commonly advanced, that
'' force is no remedy," and that it is better to trust to
the good feeling of mankind than to impose a legal re-
striction, is an amiable criticism which might doubtless
be applied with great effect to a large majority of our
existing penal enactments, but it is not very applicable
to the case under discussion. For if force is ever allow-
able, surely it is so when it is applied for a strictly de-
fensive purpose, such as to safeguard the weak and help-
less from violence and aggression. The protection of
animals by statute marks but another step onward in that
course of humanitarian legislation which, among numer-
ous triumphs, has abolished slavery and passed the Fac-
tory Acts — always in the teeth of this same time-hon-
oured but irrelevant objection that '' force is no remedy. ' '
Equally fatuous is the assertion that the administrators
of the law cannot be trusted to adjudicate between mas-
ter and " beast." It was long ago stated by Lord Ers-
kine that ^' to distinguish the severest discipline, for en-
forcing activity and commanding obedience in such
dependents, from brutal ferocity and cruelty, never yet
puzzled a judge or jury — never, at least, in my long ex-
perience. ' '
Such arguments against the legal protection of animals
were admirably refuted by John Stuart Mill. ^'The
reasons for legal intervention in favour of children," he
100 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
said, ' ^ apply not less strongly to the case of those un-
fortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of
mankind, the lower animals. It is by the grossest mis-
understanding of the principles of Liberty that the inflic-
tion of exemplary punishment on ruffianism practised
towards these defenceless beings has been treated as a
meddling by Government with things beyond its prov-
ince— an interference with domestic life. The domestic
life of domestic tyrants is one of the things which it is
most imperative on the Law to interfere with. And it
is to be regretted that metaphysical scruples respecting
the nature and source of the authority of governments
should induce many warm supporters of laws against
cruelty to the lower animals to seek for justification of
such laws in the incidental consequences of the indul-
gence of ferocious habits to the interest of human beings,
rather than in the intrinsic merits of the thing itself.
What it would be the duty of a human being, possessed
of the requisite physical strength, to prevent by force, if
attempted in his presence, it cannot be less incumbent
on society generally to repress. The existing laws of
England are chiefly defective in the trifling — often al-
most nominal — maximum to which the penalty, even in
the worst cases, is limited." ^
Let us turn now to the practical politics of the ques-
tion, and consider in what instances we may suitably ap-
peal for further legislative recognition of the rights of
animals. Admitting that education must always precede
law, and that we can only make penal those offences
^ " Principles of Political Economy."
LINES OF REFORM, lOI
which are already condemned by the better feeUng of the
nation, we are still bound to point out that in several
particulars there is now urgent need of bringing the lag-
ging influence of the legislature into a line with a rapid-
ly advancing pubhc opinion. It is possible that, in some
cases, certain prevalent cruelties might be suppressed,
without any change in the law, by magistrates and juries
giving a wider interpretation to the rather vague word-
ing of the existing statutes. If this cannot be done, the
statutes themselves should be amended, so as to meet
the larger requirements of a more enlightened national
conscience.
There are not a few cruel practices, common in Eng-
land at the present day, which are every whit as strongly
condemned by thinking people as were bull-baiting and
cock-fighting at the time of their prohibition in 1835.
Foremost among these practices, because supported by
the sanction of the State and carried on in the Queen's
name, is the institution of the Royal Buckhounds./ It
does not seem too much to demand that all worrying of
tame or captured animals — whether of the stag turned
out from a cart, the rabbit from a sack, or the pigeon
from a cage — should be interpreted as equivalent to
'' baiting," and so brought within the scope of the Acts
of 1835 and 1849. There is also need of extending to
'' vermin " some sort of protection against the wholly
unnecessary tortures that are recklessly inflicted on them,
and of abolishing or restricting the common use of the
barbarous steel-trap.
1 See p. 58.
W
102 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
The exposure lately made ^ of the horrors of Atlantic
cattle-ships — scenes that reproduce almost exactly the
worst atrocities of the slaver — is likely to lead to some
welcome improvement in the details of that lugubrious
traffic. But this will not be sufficient in itself; for the
cruelties committed in the slaughter, no less than in the
transit, of " live-stock " call imperatively for some pub-
lic cognizance and reprobation. The discontinuance,
in our crowded districts, of all private slaughter-houses,
and the substitution of public abattoirs under efficient
municipal control, would do something to mitigate tlie
worst features of the evil, and this reform should at once
, be pressed on the attention of local legislative bodies.
Lastly, in this short list of urgent temporary measures,
stands the question of vivisection ; and here there can
be no relaxation of the demand for total and unqualified
|J»K prohibition.
But, when all is said, it remains true that legislation,
important though it is, must ever be secondary to the
awakening of the humane instincts ; even education it-
self can only appeal with success to those whose minds
are in some degree naturally predisposed to receive it.
I have spoken of the desirability of an intellectual cru-
sade against the main causes of the unjust treatment of
animals ; but I would not be understood to believe, as
some humanitarians appear to do, that a hardened world
might be miraculously converted by the preaching of
a new St. Francis, if such a personality could be some-
how evolved out of our nineteenth-century commercial-
* "Cattle-Ships," by Samuel Plimsoll, 1890.
LINES OF REFORM. IO3
ism ! ^ In this infinitely complex modern society, great
wrongs cannot be wholly righted by simple means, not
even by the consuming enthusiasm of the prophet ; since
any particular form of injustice is but part and parcel of
a far more deep-lying evil — the selfish, aggressive tenden-
cies that are still so largely inherent in the human race.
Only with the gradual progress of an enlightened
sense of equality shall we remedy these wrongs ; and
the object of our crusade should be not so much to con-
vert opponents (who, by the very disabilities and limi-
tations of their faculties, can never be really converted,)
as to set the confused problem in a clear light, and at
least discriminate unmistakably between our enemies
and our allies. In all social controversies the issues are
greatly obscured by the babel of names and phrases and
cross-arguments that are bandied to and fro ; so that
many persons, who by natural sympathy and inclination
are the friends of reform, are found to be ranked among
its foes ; while not a few of its foes, in similar uncon-
sciousness, have strayed into the opposite camp. To
state the issues distinctly, and so attract and consolidate
a genuine body of support, is, perhaps, at the present
time, the best service that humanitarians can render to
the movement they wish to promote.
In conclusion, I would state emphatically that this
essay is not an appeal ad mis eric oj^diam to those who
themselves practise, or who condone in others, the deed
against which a protest is here raised. It is not a plea
for ''mercy" (save the mark !) to the ''brute beasts "
^ See article by Ouida, " Fortnightly Review," April, 1892.
I04 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
whose sole criminality consists in not belonging to the
noble family of homo sapiens. It is addressed rather to
those who see and feel that, as has been well said, '' the
great advancement of the world, throughout all ages, is
to be measured by the increase of humanity and the de-
crease of cruelty" — that man, to be truly man, must
cease to abnegate his common fellowship with all living
nature — and that the coming realization of human rights
will inevitably bring after it the tardier but not less cer-
tain realization of the rights of the lower races.
APPENDIX.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS.
In the following pages the author has attempted — not
to give a complete bibliography of the doctrine of
Animals' Rights, but merely a list of the chief English
works, touching directly on that subject, which have
come within his own notice. The passages quoted from
the older and less accessible books may serve the
double purpose of showing the rise and progress of the
movement, and of reinforcing the conclusions arrived
at in the first part of this volume.
The Fable of the Bees. By Bernard de Mandeville.
1723.
As Mandeville, whether cynic or moralist, has been
credited by some opponents of the rights of animals
with being the author of that pernicious theory, I quote
a few sentences from the most famous of his volumes :
'' I have often thought," he says, '' if it was not for this
tyranny which custom usurps over us, that men of any
tolerable good-nature could never be reconcil'd to the
killing of so many animals for their daily food, as long
as the bountiful earth so plentifully provides them with
varieties of vegetable dainties. ... In such perfect
I06 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
animals as sheep and oxen, in whom the heart, the brain
and nerves differ so httle from ours, and in whom the
separation of the spirits from the blood, the organs of
sense, and consequently feeling itself, are the same as
they are in human creatures; I can't imagine how a
man not harden' d in blood and massacre is able to see
a violent death, and the pangs of it, without concern.
In answer to this, most people will think it sufficient to
say that all things being allow 'd to be made for the
service of man, there can be no cruelty in putting creat-
ures to the use they were design' d for ; but I have heard
men make this reply while their nature within them has
reproach' d them with the falsehood of the assertion."
Free Thoughts upon the Brute Creation. By John Hil-
drop, M.A. London, 1742.
This ''examination" of Father Bougeant's ''Philo-
sophical Amusement upon the Language of Beasts"
(1740), in which it is ironically contended that the
souls of animals are imprisoned devils, is an argument in
favour of animal immortality, in the form of two letters
addressed to a lady. " Do but examine your own com-
prj.oionate heart," says the author, "and tell me, do
you not think it a breach of natural justice wantonly and
without necessity to torment, much more to take away
the life of any creature, except for the preservation and
happiness of your own being; which, in our present
state of enmity and discord, is sometimes unavoid-
able ? . . . But I expect you will tell me, as many
grave authors of great learning and little understanding
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 10/
have done before you, that there is not even the appear-
ance of injustice or cruelty in this procedure ; that if the
brutes themselves had power to speak, to complain, to
appeal to a court of justice, and plead their own cause,
they could have no just reason for such complaint.
This you may say, but I know you too well to believe
you think so ; but it is an objection thrown in your way
by some serious writers upon this subject. They tell
you that their existence was given them upon this very
condition, that it should be temporary and short, that
after they had flutter' d, or crept, or swam, or walk'd
about their respective elements for a little season, they
should be swept away by the hand of violence, or the
course of nature, into an entire extinction of being, to
make room for their successors in the same circle of
vanity and corruption. But, pray, who told them so ?
Where did they learn this philosophy? Does either
reason or revelation give the least countenance to such
a bold assertion ? So far from it, that it seems a direct
contradiction to both."
A Dissei^tation on the Duty of Mercy and Sin of Cruelty
to Brute Animals. By Humphry Primatt, D.D.
London, 1776.
'' However men may differ," says the author of this
quaint but excellent book, ''as to speculative points of
rehgion, justice is a rule of universal extent and invari-
able obligation. We acknowledge this important truth
in all matters in which Man is concerned, but then we
limit it to our own species only. And though we are
I08 ANIMALS' RTGIITS.
able to trace the most evident marks of the Creator's
wisdom and goodness, in the formation and appoint-
ment of the various classes of animals that are inferior to
men, yet the consciousness of our own dignity and ex-
cellence is apt to suggest to us that Man alone of all ter-
restrial animals is the only proper object of mercy and
compassion, because he is the most highly favoured and
distinguished. Misled with this prejudice in our own
favour, we overlook some of the Brutes as if they were
mere excrescences of Nature, beneath our notice and
infinitely unworthy the care and cognizance of the
Almighty; and we consider others of them as made
only for our service ; and so long as we can apply them
to our use we are careless and indifferent as to their hap-
piness or misery, and can hardly bring ourselves to sup-
pose that there is any kind of duty incumbent upon us
toward them. To rectify this mistaken notion is the
design of this treatise."
With much force he applies to the animal question
the precept of doing to others as we would be done unto.
''If, in brutal shape, we had been endued with the
same degree of reason and reflection which we now en-
joy ; and other beings, in Jiuman shape, should take
upon them to torment, abuse, and barbarously ill-treat
us, because we were not made in their shape ; the injus-
tice and cruelty of their behaviour to us would be self-
evident ; and we should naturally infer that, whether
we walk upon two legs or four ; whether our heads
are prone or erect ; whether we are naked or covered
with hair ; whether we have tails or no tails, horn
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. IO9
or no horns, long ears or round ears ; or, whether we
bray like an ass, speak like a man, whistle like a bird,
or are mute as a fish — Nature never intended these dis-
tinctions as foundations for right of tyranny and oppres-
sion."
He exposes the fallacy of the argument drawn from
the cruelty of animals to animals. "For us to infer
that men may be cruel to brutes in general, because
some brutes are naturally fierce and bloodthirsty, is
tantamount to saying. Cruelty in Britain is no sin, be-
cause there are wild tigers in India. But is their feroc-
ity and brutality to be the standard and pattern of our
humanity ? And because tJiey have no compassion, are
we to have no compassion ? Because they have little or
no reason, are we to have no reason? Or are we to
become as very brutes as they ? However, we need not
go as far as India ; for even in England dogs will worry
and cocks will fight (though not so often, if we did not
set them on, and prepare them for the battle). Yet
what is that to us ? Are we dogs ? are we fighting-
cocks ? Are they to be our tutors and instructors, that
we appeal to them for arguments to justify and palliate
our inhumanity ? No. Let tigers roar, let dogs worry,
and cocks fight ; but it is astonishing that men, who
boast so much of the dignity of their nature, the supe-
rior excellence of their understanding, and the immor-
tality of their souls (which, by-the-by, is a circumstance
which cruel men above all others have the least reason
to glory in), should disgrace their dignity and under-
standing by recurring to the practice of the low and
no ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
confessedly irrational part of the creation in vindication
of their own conduct. ' '
The bulk of the book is occupied with references to
scriptural texts on the duty of humaneness. The con-
cluding moral is as follows : ' ^ See that no brute of
any kind, whether intrusted to thy care, or coming in
thy way, suffer through thy neglect or abuse. Let no
views of profit, no compliance with custom, and no fear
of the ridicule of the world, ever tempt thee to the least
act of cruelty or injustice to any creature whatsoever.
But let this be your invariable rule, everywhere, and at
all times, to do tmto others as, in their condition, yotc
would be done unto, ' '
Disquisitio7is on Sevei^al Subjects. By Soame Jenyns.
1782.
Soame Jenyns (i 704-1 787) was an essayist, poet, and
politician, whose writings, though now nearly forgotten,
were highly estimated by his own generation. Chapter
II. of his '' Disquisitions " treats of '' Cruelty to Infe-
rior Animals," and is one of the best of the early trea-
tises on the subject.
*' No small part of mankind," he says, '' derive their
chief amusements from the death and sufferings of in-
ferior animals ; a much greater consider them only as
engines of wood or iron, useful in their several occupa-
tions. The carman drives his horse, and the carpenter
his nail, by repeated blows ; and so long as these pro-
duce the desired effect, and they both go, they neither
reflect nor care whether either of them have any sense
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. Ill
of feeling. The butcher knocks down the stately ox
with no more compassion than the blacksmith hammers
a horseshoe, and plunges his knife into the throat of
the innocent iamb with as little reluctance as the tailor
sticks his needle into the collar of a coat.
''■ If there are some few who, formed in a softer
mould, view with pity the sufferings of these defenceless
creatures, there is scarce one who entertains the least
idea that justice or gratitude can be due to their merits
or their services. The social and friendly dog is hanged
without remorse, if by barking in defence of his master's
person and property, he happens unknowingly to disturb
his rest ; the generous horse, who has carried his un-
grateful master for many years with ease and safety,
worn out with age and infirmities contracted in his ser-
vice, is by him condemned to end his miserable days in
a dust-cart. . . . These, with innumerable other
acts of cruelty, injustice, and ingratitude, are every
day committed, not only with impunity, but without
censure, and even without observation, but we may be
assured that they cannot finally pass away unnoticed
and unretaliated. "
Introduction to the Principles of Morals aitd Legislation.
By Jeremy Bentham. London, 1789 (printed
1780).
The following is the most notable passage in Ben-
tham's works on the subject of animals' rights. It oc-
curs in the chapter on " Limits between Private Ethics
and the Art of Legislation," in which he shows that
112 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
ethics concern a man's own conduct, legislation his
treatment of others.
''What other agents, then, [/.<?., apart from oneself]
are there, which, at the same time that they are under
the influence of man's direction, are susceptible of hap-
piness ? They are of two sorts :
'' I. Other human beings, who are ^tyX^d. persons.
*' II. Other animals, which on account of their in-
terests having been neglected by the insensibility of the
ancient jurists, stand degraded into the class oi things. ^^
To the above is subjoined in a foot-note : "Under
the Gentoo and Mahometan religions, the interests of
the rest of the animal creation seem to have met with
some attention. Why have they not, universally, with
as much as those of human creatures, allowance made
for the difference in point of sensibility ? Because the
Laws that are, have been the work of mutual fear — a
sentiment which the less rational animals have not had
the same means as man has of turning to account. Why
ought they not? No reason can be given. If the being
eaten were all, there is a very good reason why we should
be suffered to eat such of them as we like to eat : we are
the better for it, and they are never the worse.
If the being killed were all, there is very good reason
why we should be suffered to kill such as molest us :
we should be the worse for their living, and they are
never the worse of being dead. But is there any reason
why we should be suffered to torment them ? Not any
that I can see. Are there any why we should not be
suffered to torment them ? Yes, several. The day has
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. II3
been, I grieve to say in many places it is not yet past,
in which the greater part of the species, under the de-
nomination of slaves., have been treated by the law
exactly upon the same footing as, in England, for exam-
ple, the inferior races of animals are still. The day may
come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire
those rights which never could have been withholden
from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French
have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is
no reason why a human being should be abandoned,
without redress, to the caprice of a tormentor. It may
come one day to be recognized that the number of the
legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the
OS sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandon-
ing a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it
should trace the insuperable line ? Is it the faculty of
reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a
full-grown horse or dog fs, beyond comparison, a more
rational, as well as more conversable animal than an
infant of a day, a week, or even a month old. But
suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail ?
The question is not. Can they reason ? nor, Can they
talk ? but. Can they suffer ? ' '
The Cry of Nature, or An Appeal to Mercy and Justice
on behalf of the Persecuted Animals. By John Os-
wald. 1791.
John Oswald (i 730-1 793) was a native of Edinburgh,
who served as an officer in India, and became intimately
acquainted with Hindoo customs. He was a vegetarian,
8
114 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
and the main object of his '' Cry of Nature " is to advo-
cate the discontinuance of flesh-eating. Much of what
he writes on the animal question is eloquent and forci-
ble, though the book is disfigured by an ornate and
affected style. Here is an example :
"Sovereign despot of the world, lord of the life and
death of every creature, — man, with the slaves of his
tyranny, disclaims the ties of kindred. Howe'er attuned
to the feelings of the human heart, their affections are
the mere result of mechanic impulse; howe'er they may
verge on human wisdom, their actions have only the
semblance of sagacity : enlightened by the ray of reason,
man is immensely removed from animals who have only
instinct for their guide, and born to immortality, he
scorns with the brutes that perish a social bond to ac-
knowledge. Such are the unfeeling dogmas, which,
early instilled into the mind, induce a callous insensi-
bility, foreign to the native texture of the heart ; such
the cruel speculations which prepare us for the practice
of that remorseless tyranny, and which palliate the foul
oppression that, over inferior but fellow creatures, we
delight to exercise."
A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. London, 1792.
This little volume is attributed to Thomas Taylor, the
Platonist, the translator of Porphyry's famous work on
''Abstinence from the flesh of Living Beings." It was,
as already stated, designed to throw ridicule on the
theory of human rights.
In Chapter I. he ironically lays down the proposition
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS, II5
''that God hath made all things equal." ''It appears
at first sight," he says, " somewhat singular that a moral
truth of the highest importance and most illustrious evi-
dence, should have been utterly unknown to the ancients,
and not yet fully perceived, and universally acknowl-
edged, even in such an enlightened age as the present.
The truth I allude to is the equality of all things, with re-
spect to their int7Hnsic a7id real dignity and worth. . . .
I perceive, however, with no small delight that this sub-
lime doctrine is daily gaining ground among the think-
ing part of mankind. Mr. Paine has already convinced
thousands of the equality of men to each other ; and
Mrs. Woolstoncraft has indisputably proved that women
are in every respect naturally equal to men, not only in
mental abilities, but likewise in bodily strength, bold-
ness, and the like."
A Philosophical Treatise on Horses, and on the Moi'al
Duties of Man towards the B?'ute Creation. By
John Lawrence. Two vols. London, 1796-
1798. Vol. I. chapter iii. deals with "The
Rights of Beasts ; " Vol. IL chapter i. with " The
Philosophy of Sports. ' '
John Lawrence, described as " a literary farmer," was
an authority on agriculture and the management of do-
mestic animals. He was a humanitarian, and was con-
sulted by Richard Martin, M.P., on the details of the
Ill-Treatment of Cattle Bill, which became law in 1822.
Humanity is -the most conspicuous feature of Lawrence's
writings. " From my first contributions to the period-
Il6 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
ical press," so he subsequently wrote, '' I have embraced
as many opportunities as were in my power of introduc-
ing the subject, and have never written any book on the
care and management of animals wherein that important
branch has been neglected. ' '
'' It has ever been," says Lawrence, '' and still is, the
invariable custom of the bulk of mankind, not even ex-
cej^ting legislators, both religious and civil, to look upon
brutes as mere machines ; animated, yet without souls ;
endowed with feelings, but utterly devoid of rights ; and
placed without the pale of justice. From these defects,
and from the idea, ill understood, of their being created
merely for the use and purposes of man, have the feelings
of beasts, their lawful, that is, natural interests and wel-
fare, been sacrificed to his convenience, his cruelty, or
his caprice.
^' It is but too easy to demonstrate, by a series of mel-
ancholy facts, that brute creatures are not yet, in the
contemplation of any people, reckoned within the scheme
of general justice ; that they reap only the benefit of a
partial and inefficacious kind of compassion. Yet it is
easy to prove, by analogies drawn from our own, that
they also have souls ; and perfectly consistent with rea-
son to infer a gradation of intellect, from the spark which
animates the most minute mortal exiguity, up to the sum
of infinite intelligence, or the general soul of the universe.
By a recurrence to principles, it will appear that life,
intelligence, and feeling, necessarily imply rights. Jus-
tice, in which are included mercy, or compassion, obvi-
ously refers to sense and feeling. Now is the essence of
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. llj
justice divisible ? Can there be one kind of justice for
men, and another for brutes ? Or is feehng in them a
different tiling to what it is in ourselves ? Is not a beast
produced by the same rule, and in the same order of
generation with ourselves ? Is not his body nourished
by the same food, hurt by the same injuries ; his mind
actuated by the same passions and affections which ani-
mate the human breast; 'and does not he also, at last,
mingle his dust with ours, and in like manner surrender
up the vital s]3ark to the aggregate, or fountain of intel-
ligence? Is this spark,' or soul, to perish because it
chanced to belong to a beast ? Is it to become annihi-
late ? Tell me, learned philosophers, how that may pos-
sibly happen."
On the Conditct of Man to Inferior Aniinals. By George
Nicholson. Manchester, 1797.
The author of this work was a well-known Bradford
printer (1760-1825), one of the pioneers of the cheap
literature of the present day. In 1801 he published an
enlarged edition, under the title of " The Primeval Diet
of Man ; Arguments in favour of Vegetable food ; On
Man's Conduct to Animals, etc., etc." The book is in
great measure a compilation of passages illustrative of
man's cruelty to the lower kinds.
'^ In our conduct to animals," he writes in the ^' con-
cluding reflections," ''one plain rule may determine
what form it ought to take, and prove an effectual guard
against an improper treatment of them ; — a rule univer-
sally admitted as the foundation of moral rectitude ; treat
Il8 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
the ani?iial ivhich is in your power ^ in such a ma?iner as
you would willingly be treated, were you such an animal.
From men of imperious temper, inflated by wealth, de-
voted to sensual gratifications, and influenced by fashion,
no share of humanity can be expected. He who is capa-
ble of enslaving his own species, of treating the inferior
ranks of them with contempt or austerity, and who can
be unmoved by their misfortunes, is a man formed of the
materials of a cannibal, and will exercise his temper on
the lower orders of animal life with inflexible obduracy.
No arguments of truth or justice can affect such a hard-
ened mind. Even persons of more gentle natures, hav-
ing long been initiated in corrupt habits, do not readily
listen to sensations of feeling; or, if the principles of
justice, mercy, and tenderness be admitted, such princi-
ples are merely theoretical, and influence not their con-
duct.
^^ But the truly independent and sympathizing mind
will ever derive satisfaction from the prospect of well-
being, and will not incline to stifle convictions arising
from the genuine evidences of truth. Without fear or
hesitation he will become proof against the sneers of un-
feeling men, exhibit' an uniform example of humanity,
and impress on others additional arguments and mo-
tives. ... In the present diseased and ruined state
of society, the prospect is far distant when the System of
Benevolence is likely to be generally adopted. The hope
of reformation then arises from the intelligent, less cor-
rupted, and younger part of mankind ; but the numbers
are comparatively few who think for themselves, and
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 1 19
who are not infected by long-established and pernicious
customs. It is a pleasure to foster the idea of a golden age
regained, when the thought of the butcher shall not min-
gle with the sight of our flocks and herds. May the be-
nevolent system spread to every corner of the globe !
May we learn to recognize and to respect, in other ani-
mals, the feelings which vibrate in ourselves ! ' '
A71 Essay on Himianiiy to Animals. By Thomas Young,
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. London,
1798.
**In offering to the public a book on Humanity to
Animals," writes the author of this little volume, " I am
sensible that I lay myself open to no small portion of
ridicule ; independent of all the common dangers to
which authors are exposed. To many, no doubt, the
subject which I have chosen will appear whimsical and
uninteresting, and the particulars into which it is about
to lead me ludicrous and mean. From the reflecting,
however, and the humane I shall hope for a different
opinion ; and of these the number, I trust, among my
countrymen is by no means inconsiderable. The exer-
tions which have been made to diminish the sufferings
of the prisoners, and to better the condition of the poor,
the flourishing state of charitable institutions ; the inter-
est excited in the nation by the struggles for the aboli-
tion of the slave-trade ; the growing detestation of re-
ligious persecution — all these and other circumstances
induce me to believe that we have not been retrograding
in Humanity during the present century : and I feel the
I20 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
more inclination and encouragement to execute the task
to which I have set myself, inasmuch as humanity to ani-
mals presents itself to my mind as having an important
connection with humanity towards mankind."
The author bases his plea for animals' rights on the
light of nature. '^ Animals are endued with a capability
of perceiving pleasure and pain ; and from the abun-
dant provision which we perceive in the world for the
gratification of their several senses, we must conclude
that the Creator wills the happiness of these his creat-
ures, and consequently that humanity towards them is
agreeable to him, and cruelty the contrary. This, I
take it, is the foundation of the rights of animals, as far
as they can be traced independently of scripture ; and
is, even by itself, decisive on the subject, being the
same sort of argument as that on which moralists found
the Rights of Mankind, as deduced from the Light of
Nature. ' '
The book opens with a general essay on humanity and
cruelty, and contains chapters on sport, the treatment
of horses, cruelties connected with the table, etc., etc.
It is quoted approvingly by Thomas Forster and later
advocates of humanity.
Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes.
By Lewis Gompertz. London, 1824.
Lewis Gompertz was an ardent humanitarian and a
mechanical inventor of no little ingenuity, many of his
inventions being designed to save animal suffering. He
died in 1861. From 1826 to 1832 he was secretary of
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 121
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty ; but being
then compelled to withdraw, owing to religions differ-
ences, he founded the Animals' Friend Society, and a
journal of the same name.
''It needs but little power of rhetoric," he says in
his opening chapter, " to prove that it is highly culpable
in man to torture the brute creation for amusement ;
but, strange it would seem ! this self-evident principle
is not only openly violated by men whose rank in life
has denied them the benefit of good education or leisure
for reflection, but also by those with whom neither ex-
pense nor trouble has been spared towards the formation
of their intellectual powers, even in their most abstracted
recesses, and who in other respects delight in the appli-
cation of their abilities towards everything that is good
and meritorious. It is to be lamented that even philos-
ophers frequently forget themselves on this subject, and
relate, with the greatest indifference, the numerous
barbarous- and merciless experiments they have per-
formed on the suffering and innocent brutes, even on
those who show affection for them ; and then coldly
make their observations and calculations on every
different form in which the agony produced by them
manifests itself. But this they do for the advancement
of science ! and expect much praise for their meritori-
ous exertions ; forgetting that science should be sub-
servient to the welfare of man and other animals, and
ought not to be pursued merely through emulation, nor
even for the sensual gratification the mind derives from
them, at the expense of justice, the destruction of the
122 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
happiness of others, and the production of their misery—
as pleasure and pain are the only things of importance.
Forbid it that we should give assent to such
tenets as these, and that we should suffer for one moment
our reason to be veiled by such delusions ! But, on the
contrary, let us hold fast every idea, and cherish every
glimmering of such kind of knowledge as that which
shall enable us to distinguish between right and wrong,
what is due to one individual, what to another. ' '
A later volume, '•'■ Fragments in Defence of Animals,"
1852, is a collection of articles contributed by the same
author to the " Animals' Friend."
Philozoia, or Moral Reflections on the actual condition of
the Animal Ki7igdoni, and the means of improving
the same. By T. Forster. Brussels, 1839.
The author of this excellent treatise, which is ad-
dressed to Lewis Gompertz, was a distinguished nat-
uralist and astronomer who had taken an active part
in the founding of the Animals' Friend Society. He
was born in 1789, and died at Brussels in i860, having
lived abroad during the latter part of his life. A
section of his book is devoted to the '^ Condition of
Animals on the Continent."
^'One of the surest means," he says, ^'of bettering
the condition of animals will be to improve the character
of man, by giving to children a humane rational edu-
cation, and, above all, setting before them examples of
kindness. Hitherto nothing has been so much neglected
as this duty, and the evil effects of this neglect have
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 123
been generally visible in the character of the people.
At present it is better understood ; but a great deal
remains to be done, and as the education of children
will not be thoroughly reformed till their instructors
are first set to rights, I should propose to your society to
procure the delivery of lectures on the subject at the
various mechanics' institutes in England."
Of sport, he says: ''You will do well to reflect on
this, and to inquire whether the just suppression of bull-
baiting, cock-fighting, and other such vulgar and vicious
pastimes, should not, as the age becomes more and
more civilized, be followed by the abolition of fox-hunt-
ing, and all sporting not immediately directed to the
object of obtaining game for food by the most easy and
expeditious means. ' '
On the subject of ' ' the Cruelty connected with the
Culinary Art, ' ' he has also some wise remarks : ' ' Some
persons in Europe carry their notions about cruelty to
animals so far as not to allow themselves to eat animal
food. Many very intelligent men have, at different
times of their lives, abstained wholly from flesh ; and
this, too, with very considerable advantage to their
health. . . . All these facts, taken collectively,
point to a period in the progress of civilization when
men will cease to slay their fellow -mortals in the animal
world for food. . . . The return of this paradis-
ical state may be rather remote ; but in the meantime
we ought to make the experiment, and set an example
of humanity by abstaining, if not from all, at least from
those articles of cookery with which any particular
124 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
cruelty may be connected, such as veal, when the calves
are killed in the ordinary way. ' '
Equally noteworthy are the chapters on '' Cruelty in
Surgical Experiments, ' ' and ' ' Animals considered as
our Fellow Creatures. ' '
The Obligation and Extent of Humanity to Brutes, prin-
cipally considered with reference to Domesticated
Animals. By W. Youatt. London, 1839.
William Youatt (i 777-1847), Professor in the Royal
Veterinary College, and author of many standard works
on veterinary subjects, was a member of the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty.
" The claims of humanity," he says in his introduc-
tion, '' however they may be neglected or outraged in
a variety of respects, are recognized by every ethical
writer. They are truly founded on reason and on script-
ure, and in fact are indelibly engraven on the human
heart.
'' But to what degree are they recognized and obeyed ?
To what extent are they inculcated, not only in many
excellent treatises on moral philosophy, but by the great
majority of the expounders of the scriptures ? We
answer with shame, and with an astonishment that in-
creases upon us in proportion as we think of the sub-
ject,— the duties of humanity are represented as extend-
ing to our fellow-men, to the victims of oppression or
misfortune, the deaf and the dumb, the blind, the slave,
the beggared prodigal, and even the convicted felon —
all these receive more or less sympathy ; but, with ex-
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 1 25
ceptions, few and far between, not a writer pleads for
the innocent and serviceable creatures — brutes as they
are termed — that minister to our wants, natural or arti-
ficial.
'' Nevertheless, the claims of the lower animals to
humane treatment, or at least to exemption from abuse,
are as good as any that man can urge upon man. Al-
though less intelligent, and not immortal, they are sus-
ceptible of pain : but because they cannot remonstrate,
nor associate with their fellows in defence of their rights,
our best theologians and philosophers have not conde-
scended to plead their cause, nor even to make mention
of them ; although, as just asserted, they have as much
right to protection from ill-usage as the best of their
masters have.
'' Nay, the matter has been carried further than this.
At no very distant period, the right of wantonly tortur-
ing the inferior animals, as caprice or passion dictated,
was.unblushingly claimed ; and it was asserted that the
prevention of this was an interference with the rights
and liberties of man ! Strange that at the beginning of
the nineteenth century this should have been the avowed
opinion of some of the British legislators ; and that the
advocate of the claims of the brute should have been
regarded as a fool or a madman, or a compound of
both."
The book contains chapters on the usefulness and
good qualities of the inferior animals, the application of
the principle of humanity, the dissection of living ani-
mals, the study of natural history, etc.
126 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
A Few Notes on Cruelty to Animals. By Ralph Fletch-
er. London, 1846.
This treatise, by a medical man, President of the
Gloucester S. P. C. A., deals with various forms of
cruelty to the domestic animals. I quote a passage
from the Introductory Note: —
'' The quantity and variety of suffering endured by
the lower creation of animals when domesticated by
man have struck the author with awful force, but more
especially since his connection with a Society for their
alleviation : a mingled feeling of pity, horror, and anx-
iety is left on the mind at the helpless and certain fate
of such a vast crowd of innocent beings. . . . There
is a moral as well as a physical character to all animal
life, however humble it may be, — enveloped indeed in
obscurity, and with a mysterious solemnity which must
ever belong to the secrets of the Eternal. Let us then
approach with caution the unknown character of the
brute, as being an emanation from Himself; and treat
with tenderness and respect the helpless creatures de-
rived from such a source.
'* Let us not, therefore, enter into the needless ques-
tion whether animals have souls. We behold the mis-
eries of the poor dumb creature, we feel that we have
free-will sufficient, and the means, to lighten his bur-
dens ; let us therefore commence with energy this really
benevolent purpose, rather than assume theories of his
happiness which are but apologies for our want of feel-
ing, our avarice, or our indolence."
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 12/
Some Talk about Animals and their Masters. By Sir
Arthur Helps. London, 1873.
This pleasant and popular little book contains many-
good remarks about animals. But there is no attempt
in it to advance any distinct or consistent view of the
question.
Mail and Beast, here and hereafter. By the Rev. J. G.
Wood. London, 1874.
This is a plea for animal immortality, by a well-known
naturalist. His plan is threefold. First, to show that
the Bible does not deny a future life to animals. Sec-
ondly, to prove by anecdotes, ''that the lower animals
share with man the attributes of Reason, Language,
Memory, a sense of moral responsibility, Unselfishness,
and Love, all of which belong to the spirit and not to
the body." Thirdly, to conclude that, as man expects
to retain these qualities after death, the presumption is
in favour of the animals also retaining them.
A list of numerous works on the subject of animal
immortality may be found in ''The Literature of the
Doctrine of a Future Life," Appendix II., New York,
187 1, by Ezra Abbot.
The Rights of an Animal, a new Essay in Ethics. By
Edward Byron Nicholson, M.A. London, 1879.
This plea for animals' rights gives much interesting
information on the animal question in general. It con-
tains a reprint of part of John Lawrence's chapter on
"The Rights of Beasts," with a memoir of the author.
128 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
A Fleafo)" Mercy to Animals. By J. Macaulay. Lon-
don, 1 88 1.
The author directs his argument, on rehgious grounds,
against vivisection and the deh berate ill-usage of ani-
mals; but does not advocate any distinct theory of
rights.
The Ethics of Diet, a Catena of Authorities deprecatory
of the habit of Flesh- eating. By Howard Williams,
M.A. London and Manchester, 1883.
Of all recent books on the subject of animals' rights this
is by far the most scholarly and exhaustive. Though
written primarily from a vegetarian standpoint, it con-
tains a vast amount of general information on the various
phases of the animal question, and is therefore invaluable
to any earnest student of that subject. The key-note
of the book is struck in the following passage of the
preface :
'^In the general constitution of life on our globe,
suffering and slaughter, it is objected, are the normal
and constant condition of things — the strong relent-
lessly and cruelly preying upon the weak in endless
succession — and, it is asked, why then should the human
species form an exception to the general rule, and hope-
lessly fight against Nature? To this it is to be replied,
first : that, although too certainly an unceasing and cruel
internecine warfare has been waged upon this atomic
globe of ours from the first origin of Life until now, yet,
apparently, there has been going on a slow, but not un-
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. 1 29
certain, progress towards the ultimate elimination of the
crueller phenomena of Life ; that, if the carnivora form
a very large proportion of living beings, yet the non-
carnivora are in the majority ; and lastly, what is still-
more to the purpose, that Man most evidently by his
origin and physical organization belongs not to the
former but to the latter; besides and beyond which,
that in proportion as he boasts himself (and as he is
seen at his best, and only so far, he boasts himself with
justice) to be the highest of all the gradually ascending
and co-ordinated series of living beings, so is he, in that
proportion, bound to prove his right to the supreme
place and power, and his asserted claims to moral as
well as mental superiority, by his conduct. In brief, in
so far only as he proves himself to be the beneficent
ruler and pacificator — and not the selfish tyrant — of the
world, can he have any just title to the moral pre-
eminence. ' '
Our Duty towards Animals. By Philip Austin. Lon-
don, 1885.
The author of this pamphlet, discussing the question
*'in the light of Christian philosophy," argues that
animals have no rights, and quotes many passages to
prove that such a theory is contrary to the teaching of
Scripture and the early Fathers. ''The morality," he
says, "which satisfied S. Augustine may surely be con-
sidered good enough for the English churchman of to-
day." He ridicules Sir A. Helps' idea of showing
''courtesy" to animals. "It should be remembered
9
130 ANIMALS' RIGHTS,
that they are our slaves, not our equals, and for this
reason it is well to keep up such practices as hunting
and fishing, driving and riding, merely to demonstrate in
a practical way man's dominion over the brutes. . . .
It is found that an advocacy of the rights of brutes is
associated with the lowest phases of morality, and that
kindness to the brutes is a mere work of supereroga-
tion."
This essay is well worth the attention of humani-
tarians, as coming from an out-spoken opponent of ani-
mals' rights, — one whose views are an interesting survival
of the mediaeval spirit of utter indifference to animal
suffering. That Mr. Austin's argument is not a bur-
lesque, may be shown by the following passage from an
article on " The Lower Animals " in the '' Catholic Dic-
tionary," by W. E. Addis and T. Arnold, 1884.
' '■ As the lower animals have no duties, since they are
destitute of free will, without which the performance of
duty is impossible, so they have no rights, for right and
duty are correlative terms. The brutes are made for
man, who has the same right over them which he has
over plants and stones. He may, according to the
express permission of God, given to Noe, kill them for
his food ; and if it is lawful to destroy them for food,
and this without strict necessity, it must also be lawful
to put them to death, or to inflict pain on them, for any
good and reasonable end, such as the promotion of
man's knowledge, health, etc., or even for the purposes
of recreation. But a limitation must be introduced
here. It is never lawful for a man to take pleasure
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS' RIGHTS. T31
directly in the pain given to brutes, because, in doing
so, man degrades and brutalizes his own nature. ' ' ^
The Duties and the Rights of Man. By J. B. Austin,
1887.
In Book V. the author deals with the '^ Indirect Duties
of Man towards Animals." While not allowing more
than '' instinct " to animals, and asserting that ''■ in the
whole of the animal kingdom there is not a single speci-
men possessing even a spark of reason," he advocates
humaneness on the ground that animals are ''sensitive
^ In this connection, a letter written by the late Cardinal Man-
ning to Dr. Leffingwell will be of interest.
Archbishop's House, Westminster, July 13, i8gi.
Dear Sir :
The Catholic Church has never made any authoritative declaration
as to our obligations toward the lower animals.
But some Catholics have misapplied the teaching of Moral The-
ology to this question.
We owe duties to moral agents. The lower animals are not
moral agents. Therefore it is thought that we owe them no moral
duties.
But this is all irrelevant.
We owe to ourselves the duty not to be brutal or cruel ; and we
owe to God the duty of treating all His creatures according to His
own perfections of love and mercy.
" The righteous man is merciful to his beast."
Believe me.
Yours faithfully,
HENRY E. CARD. ARCHB'P.
Dr. Albert Leffingwell.
132 ANIMALS' RIGHTS.
beings." By cultivating the faculty of sympathy, and
by considering that sensibility to pain is common to
both men and animals, we soon perceive that to inflict
needless and unjust pain upon the latter, is to sin against
one's own nature, and therefore to commit a crime.
VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
BY
ALBERT LEFFINGWELL, M.D.,
MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION, ETC.
VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
CHAPTER I.
VIVISECTION IN MEDICAL SCHOOLS.
Upon no ethical question of our day is there a more
striking difference of opinion than regarding the value
or the righteousness of experimentation upon living ani-
mals. About this practice the atmosphere of contro-
versy is thick with the dust of contradiction and dis-
pute. ''It is one of the foundations of medical sci-
ence/' asserts one authority. " The conclusions of vivi-
section are absolutely worthless," is the reply of one of
the most eminent surgeons of our time. " ^ " It is a mild,
merciful, and, for the most part, painless, interrogation
of Nature, and her secrets of life," says a recent apolo-
gist and advocate of vivisection. " The experiments
of certain physiologists are those of mhuman devils, ^^
says Canon Wilberforce, of England. Among contradic-
tions like these one may well ask, where is truth to be
found ?
The solution of this strange divergence of opinion is
not difficult ; it lies simply in the absence of careful de-
' Mr. Lawson Tait of England.
136 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
finitions of the words we use. '' Vivisection " is a term
which inckides some kinds of operations upon Hving
animals involving excruciating and prolonged torture;
and some other kinds of operation which simply destroy
life with the discomfort of induced disease; and yet
other experiments which involve no pain whatever. It
is a practice of almost infinite variety and complexity.
To speak of it as inevitably involving the infliction of
torture is to betray ignorance ; to defend it on the
ground that pain is never inflicted, and that alleged
abuses rarely, if ever, occur, is to state what every stu-
dent of physiology knows to be false.
Atrocities of vivisection are facts of history. It is well
perhaps at the outset to take a glance at some of them.
What has been done by men without pity, in the hope
to wrest from Nature something she has hid ?
The abuses of research include every form of excru-
ciating and lingering torment that can be conceived.
In the august name of Science, animals have been sub-
jected to burning, baking, freezing ; saturation with in-
flammable oil and then setting on fire ; starvation to
death ; skinning alive ; larding the feet with nails ;
crushing and tormenting in every imaginable way.
Human ingenuity has taxed itself to the utmost to de-
vise some new torture, that one may observe what curi-
ous results will ensue. For instance. Dr. Brachet, of
Paris, by various torments, inspired a dog with the ut-
most anger, and then, '■'■ when the animal became furious
whenever it saw me, I put out its eyes. I could then
appear before it without the manifestation of any aver-
VIVISECTION IN MEDIC AI SCHOOIS. I 37
sion. I spoke, and immediately its anger was renewed.
I then disorganized the internal ear as much as I could,
and when intense inflammation made it deaf, then I went
to its side, spoke aloud, and even caressed it without its
falling into a rage." Of this one man Dr. EUiotson, in
his work on " Human Physiology," goes out of his way
to say: ''I cannot refrain from expressing my horror
at the amount of torture which Dr. Brachet inflicted. I
hardly think knowledge is worth having at such a pur-
chase." ^
Von Lesser, of Germany, made a long series of ex-
periments in scalding animals to death. He '■'■ plunged
a dog for thirty seconds into boiling water ; " he
*' scalds another four times, at various intervals ; " even
animals which have just passed through the pangs of
parturition do not escape.^ Dr. Castex, of Paris, fastens
a dog to the dissecting-table and, discarding the use of
anaesthetics, stands above it '' with a large empty stone
bottle. I strike with all my strength a dozen violent
blows on the thighs. By its violent cries the animal
shows that the blows are keenly felt." Of another
victim : "I dislocate both the shoulders, doing it with
difficulty; it appears to suffer greatly; " ^ and so on
through the long series.
Chauveau " consecrated " more than eighty large an-
imals, mostly horses and mules, worn out in the service
of man, to almost the extremest torture possible to con-
^ " EUiotson's Physiology" p. 448.
^ " Virchow's Archiv." vol. Ixxix., pp. 248-289.
^ " xVrchives de Medecine," January 1892, pp. 9-22.
138 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
ceive, not, as he expressly tells us, '' to solve any prob-
lem in medical theory," but simply to see what degree
of pain can be inflicted through irritation of the spinal
cord. Mantegazza, of Milan, devoted a year to the in-
fliction of torment upon animals — some pregnant, some
nursing their young — in a long series of experiments
which had no conceivable relation to the cure of dis-
ease, and which ended in the attainment of no beneficial
or even instructive results. To produce what he desired
— the extremest degree of pain possible — he invented a
new machine, which he calls his '^tormentor," and in
this fiendish device, little animals, which had been first
'^quilted with long thin nails," so that the slightest
movement is agony, are racked with added torments ; torn
and twisted, crushed and lacerated, hour by hour, till
crucified Nature will no longer endure, and sends death as
a tardy release. Yet all these experiments, repeated day
after day, were conducted, as Mantegazza himself asserts,
not with pity or repugnance ; of that, no admission is
made; but ''with much delight and extreme patience
for the space of a year. ' ' ^ One stands in mute amaze-
ment at revelations like these. Dante in his '' Inferno ' '
never dreamed of torture so awful as certain refinements
of torment which Professor Mantegazza invented and
executed; the details cannot be told. ^ Yet is there a
vivisection more awful to contemplate than a man like
this who has succeeded in plucking from his heart every
sentiment of pity or instinct of compassion ? And
^ " Fisiologia del Dolore" di Paoli Mantegazza, p. loi.
^ " Fisiologia del Dolore," pp. 102-3.
VIVISECTION IN MEDICAL SCHOOLS. 1 39
how barren of benefit were the results of these experi-
ments ! Out of all these multiphed torments of Richet
and Mantegazza, of Chauveau and Castex, of Magendie
and Brown-Sequard, Science has found not one single
remedy to disease, not one discovery of the slightest
value to mankind !
What have the atrocities of experimentation to do
with America ? Much, every way. There is hardly a
physiologist in this country who will not admit that
such cruelties are to be deplored ; and that the ardor of
scientific curiosity has driven these men into unpardon-
able excess. But how did it happen ? Was it because
they were by nature more brutal than other men ?
Probably not. On one point the teaching of History is
uniform. Wherever is confei'red power without respon-
sibility, there will follow — there must follow — license
a?td abuse. It is the relation of cause and effect. Per-
haps we execrate unduly the heartlessness of a Nero or a
Robespierre, a Magendie or a Mantegazza. They were
but the natural product of a selfish civilization, which
made them monsters of cruelty, only by the gift of ab-
solute power.
But are such glaring abuses possible in America ?
Why not ? The realm of pain has here no boundaries
which investigation is required to observe. In no
American State or Commonwealth is there any law, any
statute of any kind whatever, which would prevent
these same experiments from being repeated here as often
as desired ! Now, is it probable that in a country like
ours, with a population drawn from every foreign source.
I40 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
experimental research, thus unrestrained, remains free
from the excesses which have stained it everywhere else
— in Italy, in Germany, in France ? The absence of
clear, definite, and reasonable limitations, beyond which
vivisection becomes cruelty, and should not go — is of
itself an invitation to almse. Such restrictions elsewhere
have been successfully initiated. In England, Scotland,
and Ireland — countries whose medical skill is quite
equal to our own — a painful experiment for the illustra-
tion of facts already known has been prohibited for
over fifteen years. The law there has placed a limit ;
and the law is obeyed. It has not remedied every evil,
but at any rate it has prevented to a large extent that
''abuse of vivisection by reckless, unfeeling, and unskil-
ful persons," which Dr. John C. Dalton admitted and
deplored.
Not merely the absence of legal limitations, but the
absence of all supervision, is another invitation to ex-
cess. Up to fifteen or twenty years ago, when agitation
against cruelty had just begun, it was the custom not
only to show results of experiments but to perform
even the most excruciating operations on living animals
before a class-room of students, as aids to memory.
There was no special secrecy about them ; anyone able
to find his way to the lecture-room could observe every-
thing. If there were indefensible cruelties, they were
at any rate as unconcealed and as openly done as in
Paris to-day. Now, all this is changed. Experimenta-
tion has vastly increased ; but it exists largely in com-
parative secrecy, behind locked doors, guarded by sen-
VIVISECTION' IN MEDICAL SCHOOLS. 14I
tinels. To the largest physiological laboratory of New
York City even the President of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals cannot gain admit-
tance during hours for ''work." Against reasonable
privacy of this kind no criticism can be justly urged.
An anatomical dissecting-room, for instance, ought not
to be open to every passer-by. But if bodies for dis-
section were, to-day, as frequently the result of myste-
rious murder or violated graves as in the time of Burke
and Hare, and yet all entrance to the dissecting-room,
all inspection or oversight, were absolutely refused, we
may be sure that an alarmed and indignant public sen-
timent would demand — what has been given — not the
pubhcity of dissection, but its supervision and control
by the law. For the world does not like overmuch
secrecy, and right doing never needs it. We are
touched with a feehng of horror, to-day, not so much
by the long procession in the Auto-da-fe as by remem-
brance of all the awful mystery which preceded it ; the
dim-lighted underground dungeons; the application of
the ''question" at midnight; the groans for mercy
which met no response ; the shrieks of agony which only
the stone walls echoed. The Bastile rises without pro-
test ; but in course of centuries it becomes an interroga-
tion-point which Paris cannot answer ; then comes a
14th of July, and it is swept from the face of the earth.
Even Science needs that Pity should stand by her side.
True, from the standpoint of anti-vivisection, inspection
is not demanded; it means, one says, " compromise and
acknowledgment. ' ' But it means more than this ; it
142 VIVISECTION IN- AMERICA.
means accurate knowledge of all the facts ; the disper-
sion of error; illumination, enlightenment, certitude.
'^ Misjudgment of vivisection exists," one says. Well,
how is it to be dispelled by all this concealment and
secrecy ? No real impediment to any experimentation
that is not abuse, can result from bringing laboratories
and all their work under the inspection of qualified rep-
resentatives of the Societies for protection of Animals'
Rights and the prevention of cruelty.
Upon the excesses into which a perverted zeal or cruel
indifference has led experimenters in America, it is
hardly necessary to dwell. Proofs are abundant enough ;
one needs only to study our American text-books of
physiology, where the various experiments performed,
^^ for teaching purposes," every year, are frankly related.
Once we admit the right to torture a living creature
simply as an aid to memory, and where shall we put
bounds to the cruelty one may inflict ? Is it an abuse
of experimental science to cut out the stomach from a
living dog — the ''infamous experiment of Magendie,"
as Dr. Sharpey calls it ? I have seen it done, not in
Europe, but America. To cut down upon the spinal
cord of a dog for the demonstration of its functions —
an operation which Dr. Michael Foster, of Cambridge
University, has never seen performed, from "horror of
the pain? " ^here is there a medical college in Amer-
ica in which it has never been done? Is it an abuse of
vivisection to freeze rabbits to death before a class of
!/ young men and young women merely to illustrate what
i everyone knew in advance ? It is done annually. To
VIVISECTION- IN MEDICAL SCHOOLS. 143
divide the most acutely sensitive nerve in the whole
body in order to prove what nobody doubts ? It is one
of the ' ' regular experiments. ' ' To mutilate a living ani-
mal so severely that left to itself, death might occur ;
to fasten it so that struggle is useless ; to set in operation
delicate machinery which shall cause it to breathe by
artificial force, and so to keep it through a long night of
terror and pain till "■ wanted " for the final sacrifice of
demonstration before students on the following day? It
is not of infrequent occurrence in American laboratories.
'^ It helps memory," says one. But what gain to mem-
ory can outweigh that blunting of compassion, that de-
terioration of pity, which all this familiarity with tort-
ure tends to induce? '^ What doth it profit a man " to
see it all ? Let Dr. Bigelow, late Professor of Surgery
at Harvard University, reply : '■ ' Watch the students at
a vivisection. It is the blood and suffering, not the
science, that rivets their breathless attention. If hospi-
tal service makes young students less tender of suffering,
vivisection deadens their humanity and begets indiffer-
ence to it."
''But," somebody protests, ''surely there should be
no limitations or conditions regarding original re-
searches ? ' ' Well, why not ? Investigation in America
has been absolutely unrestrained ; has it accomplished
anything of value? Have not even American scientists
been subject to an enthusiasm that during investigation,
takes no account of the pain it inflicts ? Look, for ex-
ample, at that series of one hundred and forty one experi-
ments performed not long ago in Jersey City, opposite
144 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
New York. The object of the experimenter was, as he
tells us in his account of them, '' to produce the greatest
amount of injury" to the spinal cord and its attach-
ments without killing the animal outright ; and with
this end in view a great number of dogs, with hob-
bled limbs, were dropped from a height of twenty
five feet, so as to effect all the severest injuries thus
designed. Strange, indeed, it is to read the record
of experiment after experiment, and to note that ' ' even
a few hours after they had been dropped, when the ex-
perimenter presented himself to their view, the dogs not
severely injured never failed to greet their master with
extravagant expressions of joy.' '' Well, what judgment
are we entitled to pass on these investigations ? What
valuable discovery for the benefit of suffering humanity
accrued therefrom ? The highest European authority
upon medical questions shall tell us : '' // is a record
of the most wanton and stupidest cruelty we have ever seen
chronicled under the guise of scientific experiments. If
this were a type of experimental inquiry indulged in by the
profession, public feeling would be rightly against us ;
for, apart from the utterly useless nature of the observa-
tions, so far as regards human surgery, there is a callous
indifference shown in the descriptions of the sufferings
of the poor brutes which is positively revolting. What
conclusions can be drawn from these unscientific experi-
ments ? That dogs falling from a height of twenty-four
feet were liable to rupture or injure lungs, liver, kidneys,
viscera, blood-vessels, or bones ? Is there anything new-
er useful in this grand discovery? That pathological
VIVISECTION IN MEDICAL SCHOOLS. 1 45
changes rarely occurred in the spinal cord ? Does this
help us to any similar conclusion, after totally dissimilar
railway accidents to man ? Not the least. We trust
no one in our profession, or out of it, will be tempted
by the fancy that these or such like experiments are
scientific or justifiable. Badly planned and without a
chance of teaching us anything, and carried out in a
wholesale cruel way, we cannot but feel ashamed of the
work as undertaken by a member of our p7'ofession.^'' ^
This is the judgment of the British Medical Journal,
the leading authority of Great Britain. Here we have
criticism based upon knowledge of what constitutes an
abuse of scientific research. It cannot be swept aside as
the wailing of sentiment or the exaggeration of ignorance.
What may be done in America to prevent these abuses?
Denounce the entire medical profession as in a league
with '' inhuman devils " of cruelty ? That is folly. The
man who has watched at midnight with some old family
physician, by the bedside of his dying wife or child, will
not hear you. Agitate for total abohtion ? It will be
achieved sometime, when the conduct of humanity to-^ ^
ward all that breathes and suffers shall be governed by ^^
ideas of altruistic equity. But what shall we aim to do «
for our country, and to-day ? Is not reform of abuse ^
the first practical step ? The duty of the hour, it seems «
to me, is the excitation of interest in this subject ; the
acquisition of accurate knowledge about it ; the en- *'<
couragement of intelligent personal investigation. " Is
it true," one should ask, ''that such awful agony has \
^ "British Medical Journal," Nov. 15, 1891. ^^
10
146 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
been repeatedly inflicted upon animals by European
physiologists, and that proof of their cruelties is based
upon their own statements and reports ? Can it possibly
be true that not a single one of these accursed experi-
ments has yielded to medical science any discovery of
the least practical value in the treatment of disease ? Is
it true that no law prevents the repetition of these abuses
in my own State ? Is it true that such painful experi-
ments are unnecessary for the attainment of medical
knowledge and skill ; that every year a host of phy-
sicians and surgeons graduate from the medical schools
of England, Ireland, and Scotland who never once in the
course of their studies are asked to see an animal tort-
ured that lessons may be remembered ? ' ' Decision
upon questions like these is not difficult ; but let it be
conviction based upon solid facts ; for that alone has
chance to be heard, or opportunity to be effective in re-
sults. Men will differ regarding the justification of
research where pain is not involved ; but never need the
advocacy of use bewilder us into blind condonation of
revolting abuse. It is, then, solely to the creation of an
intelligent public sentiment that we can look with hope-
fulness for the slightest mitigation or prevention of the
evils deplored. Its evolution may be slow. But, once
aroused, public sentiment in America is irresistible when
based on Right ; and before this tribunal no cruelty or
abuse of scientific research can ultimately escape con-
demnation and the stamp of atrocity and crime.
CHAPTER II.
VIVISECTION IN AMERICAN COLLEGES.
Thus far we have examined the question of unre-
stricted experimentation as a method of medical instruc-
tion. That it would be confined to this purpose no
attentive observer of the modern scientific spirit could
for a moment believe. Once let it be granted that sen-
tient creatures may be subjected to any degree of pain
for the simple illustration of well-known facts, and it
is certainly difficult to say why the practice should not
be so extended as to gratify the scientific curiosity of any-
one who desires seriously to investigate the phenomena
of life. Within the past few years a new aspiration has
become prominent — the wish to penetrate to the very
heart of Nature, and to pluck from thence each mystery
which there lies hidden. Since for the future, one of the
chief aims of scientific endeavour is to wTest from un-
willing Nature her secret thought, we could have known
for certainty, years ago, that this idea would not be
confined within the walls of the medical school.
That which any careful observer of recent tendencies
in thought might have foreseen, has actually occurred.
Spurred by competitive rivalry into provision for the
most advanced courses of instruction ; hindered by no
148 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
Strong public sentiment, which should demand the least
safeguard against danger or abuse, nearly every great ed-
ucational institution of America is widening the oppor-
tunity for its young men and young women to investi-
gate the phenomena -of living things, — not as an adjunct
to professional study, but merely as a phase of that scien-
tific training which in future is- to form a part of a liberal
education.
The change has been gradual and unobtrusive. In
the printed catalogues of colleges we may find little
note of the study of physiology ; that, to-day, is merely
a department of Biology, which includes within its scope
not only the functions, but also the structure and devel-
opment of all living creatures. The American university
of to-day has no thought of fashioning itself after the
ancient models of Oxford and Cambridge ; its ideals are
found rather in Germany or France. No American col-
lege at present reckons itself completely equipped with-
out its biological laboratory and its staff of instructors,
conversant with newest methods of foreign investiga-
tion.
Nor is the modern aim simply to teach students the
gathered facts of previous inquiries. The new ideal
would inspire students, not to believe, but to investi-
gate. " Every encouragement is afforded to those who
show aptitude for original research," is the frequently-
recorded promise to the young inquirer. Let us take
a few representative American Colleges, and note some
of the advantages they are offering to the student of
to-day.
VIVISECTION IN AMERICAN CO LIEGES. 1 49
Harvard University. — '^ Students working in the
Physiological Laboratory study the various digestive and
respiratory processes . . . and devote themselves
to similar problems and processes.
"All the apparatus used in this laboratory is contrived
and made expressly for it." — From "What Harvard
College Is." — By F. Bolles, Sec'y.
Yale University ; Course 128. — " Huxley's Lessons
in Elementary Physiology, with occasional lectures and
illustrative experijnents. ... A course of lectures
on Experimental Toxicology^ is open to students in the
above course."
Williams College. — "Anatomy is studied only so
far as it may be necessary to an intelligent discussion of
Physiology. An effort is made to exhibit not only the
results, bttt also the methods of physiological research.
The new Thompson Biological Laboratory is a
large building of four stories. The laboratory is well
equipped with . . . all the appliances for general
and advanced work."
Tufts College. — " The work in Biology begins
with the study of Physiology, which is required of all
students in the Classical and Philosophical Courses.
. . . Subjects are taught by lectures and by laboratory
work, the object being to impai-t the scientific method,
rather than a large number of unimportant factsQ.).
^ '■'■Toxicology : The science which treats of poisons." — Web-
ster.
ISO VIVISECTION IN" AMERICA.
^' Provision is made for original investigations, and
students will be encouraged to continue their work in
this department (Biology) by means of research on special
problems. ' '
Princeton (College of New Jersey). — ''An ad-
vanced course in Biology has been established ....
the objects in view being (i) To foster a spirit of origi-
nal research ; (2) to qualify advanced students to be-
come teachers. It is not restricted to students who are
candidates for a degree, if they possess sufficient element-
ary knowledge, to profit by the instruction. These
courses are of a comprehensive and elastic character, and
include much laboratory work under the direc-
tion of the instructor."
Syracuse University. — ''Biology is required in all
the courses during the third term of the sophomore year.
To students showing special aptness there is opportunity
for continuous work along special lines."
University of Rochester. — " Instruction is given
by means of laboratory work, lectures, and recitations,
especial attention being given to the first.
Physiology : Experiments performed by the students in-
dividually form a feature of the course. Honor Studies :
Experimental work on digestion and on the functions
of nerves. (Seniors.) "
Northwestern University. — (^Physiology. ^ "The
work consists of laboratory work, four hours a week, with
VIVISECTION IN AMERICAN COLIEGES. 151
weekly lectures upon comparative anatomy, amply illus-
trated by dissections and demonstrations. ' '
Cornell University. — '' In all the courses, labora-
tory work forms an integral part. With the general
courses in Physiology and Zoology, one-third of the
time devoted to the subject is occupied on laboratory work
or demonstrations. In the advanced courses, laboratory
work is proportionally much greater in amount."
University of Michigan. — The courses in Physiol-
ogy are arranged for those who intend to become phy-
sicians or dentists, those who propose to teach the
subject, and those who contemplate making Biology a spe-
cialty. . . .■ In the laboratory, the student learns to
use the apparatus ajtd methods employed in ordinary phys-
iological experiments. Advanced students are given an
opportunity to begin research work. . . . Tha
laboratories of the University are provided with the nec-
essary facilities, not only for ordinary biological work,
but for somewhat extended research, and every encourage-
ment is given to the students, especially in the last year, to
devote themselves to original i?tvestigations. ' '
Leland Stanford Jr. University (CaUfornia). —
*' I. General Anatomy and Physiology : Laboratory
work seven and one-half hours a week through the year.
. . . The laboratory work will give occasion to discuss
many questions of general biology. 2. Ani?nal Physi-
ology : . . . Laboratory work five hours a week
through the year. It includes an experimental course in
^
Y
152 VI VISE CTIOy IN" A ME RICA .
Physiology, based upon Foster's ' Physiology ' as the text.
The Graduate Courses in Physiology and Histology
will include the thorough study of some of the more re-
cent treatises of various subjects in Histology and Physi-
ology, and a repetition of a sufficient number of experi-
me7ital investigations to give a discipline in the 7nethods of
investigation. . . . Students in this department will
occupy the latter portion of their courses, mainly on
some original research the subject of which is determined
by previous training — and their inclinations y
University of Chicago. — ^^ Autumn Quarter (Assist-
ant Professor Loeb) : Original investigations in Physiolo-
gy. Laboratory work in physiology of the sense-organs
and the nervous system. Winter Quarter : Laboratory
work in the physiology of circulation, respiration, and
animal heat. Spidng Quarter: Laboratory work in
physiology of the nerves and muscles, and in general
physiology. Summer Quainter : Physiological Demon-
strations. It is the aim of this course to give to teachers
in high schools and colleges an opportunity to become
familiar with the typical physiological experiments. ' '
This is by no means a complete list, but it serves as a
fair illustration of the position attained to-day by that
spirit of scientific inquiry, which, within a quarter of a
century, step by step, has conquered its way into domi-
nant ascendency over the old and long-established
ideals of collegiate training.
In regard to most of the group of sciences included
VIVISECTION IN AMERICAN COLIEGES. I 53
under the name of Biology, to the study of organization,
of tissue and development, there is no question of their
vast importance and value. But the complete study of
animal functions introduces the young student to another
phase of investigation — the observation of pain. One
may indeed learn all the truths of Physiology without
this experience ; but he must then be willing to accept
facts upon others' testimony ; and the new scientific spirit
insists that personal investigation must supersede belief.
For example, you may learn perfectly each and all of
the functions of the nervous system, by the careful study
of recorded facts. But suppose you demand that the
recorded fact shall be emphasized ' ' by experi ment and
opportunity for observation ? ' ' Then some creature
must be put to an agonizing death to gratify your
curiosity. Now how far is this method of study a per-
missible element in the training of young men at American
colleges ?
I think this inquiry one of great importance. Here
is no question of '^cruelty," for the essence of that
vice is the infliction of agony for amusement, the cau-
sation of wanton torment, of purposeless pain. Nobody
acquainted with the earnest men who direct the science-
teaching departments of our colleges, will for a moment
fancy them guilty of aimless torture. But how far will
scientific enthusiasm lead them on ? To what extent
do the university authorities in America permit the
causation of pain, simply for purposes of illustration ?
Let us make the question as definite as possible. One
of the principal European experimenters to-day is Dr.
154 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
Simon Strieker, of Vienna. Not long since I was told by
a professor in one of the leading medical colleges of New
York, that he had himself witnessed the most horrible
tortures conceivable inflicted by this man upon living
monkeys, — animals specially selected because in their
dying torments their facial expression became so like to
human agony ! A European journal recently describes
one of his class-demonstrations, wherein he destroys the
spinal cord of a dog by thrusting a steel probe into the
spinal column, producing, we may say, the most atro-
cious torture it is possible to conceive. The animal
evinced its agony by fearful convulsions ; but it was
permitted to utter no cry that might evoke sympathy,
for previous to the demonstration its laryngeal nerves
had been cut ! No vivisection could be more utterly
unjustifiable or more fiendish in atrocity. And yet with
entire and perfect good faith this demonstrator might
have repeated the well-worn formula, that he was ' ^ care-
ful to inflict no unnecessary pain." '^I know," said
Herr Strieker, on one occasion, '' that this experiment
will seem cruel ; but it is '■ necessary ' that my hearers
should have its effects impressed on their minds ! ' '
Surely, there was never more fit example of Milton's
words :
" So spake the fiend, and with Necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his dev'lish deeds."
Now for this same reason, merely as a method of
teaching, what prevents that detnonst7'atio ft- experiment of
Strieker from being regularly repeated before young i?ie7i
J VI VSE CTION IN A M ERIC A N C OILE GES. I 5 5
and young women in the leadiftg colleges and iLniversiiies
of the United States ?
I am indebted to a distinguished member of the medi-
cal profession, Dr. Ballou, of Providence, R. I., for in-
formation which seems to me to afford a complete an-
swer to this question. Desiring to ascertain whether any
restrictions, hindering the use of torture as a means of
illustration, had been imposed by those having control of
our educational institutions, he wrote to the presidents
of certain representative American colleges, asking them
whether any regulations existed, defining or limiting the
extent to which living animals might be subjected to
painful experiment in the College laboratory. In nearly
all cases the inquiry was accompanied by special ref-
erence to statements in the printed catalogue, and the
correspondence therefore seems to have varied somewhat
in phraseology, although the leading question was in-
variably the same. The following letter is fairly rep-
resentative of this request for light :
^' To the President of The University of California.
'' Dear Sir : Referring to your ^ Register ' and to the
outlines of biological studies there presented, may I ask
whether the University of California, by any written
instructions, has placed any limitations to painful experi-
vientation upon living animals ? Are students
permitted to carry their investigations to any exte7it in-
clination may suggest ? In this matter, in short, does
the University regard it best to leave all questions as to
IS6 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
methods of research solely to investigators themselves
— pupils or instructors ? ' '
The following extracts are from some of the replies
he received. The italics are my own.
From Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight,
President of Yale University, New Haven, Ct.
''In answer to your letter of the 14th I
would say that we have had no occasion to lay down
any definite restrictions as to the matter to which you
refer, as we have entire confidence in the professors hav-
ing special charge of the courses of study in physiolo-
gy- •• •
"Timothy Dwight."
From Charles W. Eliot, LL.D.,
President of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
'' Original research in Biology and allied branches is
not limited in any way at this University. The instruc-
tors take all responsibility regarding methods of research.
The students work wholly under the direction of the
instructors, and have no discretion as to inethods em-
ployed.
" Charles W. Eliot."
From Rev. Dr. Francis L. Patton,
President of the College of New Jersey, Princeton.
. '^ The College of New Jersey has not defined
VIVISECTION IN AMERICAN COILEGES. 157
or limited, so far as my knowledge goes, the extent to
which living animals may be subjected to pain. . . .
'^ Francis L. Patton."
From James R. Day, D.D.,
President Syracuse University, N. Y.'
''In reply to your first question would say
that there are no written restrictions.
" We leave the decision to the judgment of the inves-
tigator. _ ,,
''James R. Day. '
From James B. Angell, LL.D., President of the Uni-
versity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
"The methods in use in our biological laboratory
are those ordinarily employed, I think, elsewhere in
similar institutions ; but students are not permitted
to work on living animals except under supervi-
sion.
"James B. Angell."
From William R. Harper, Ph.D., D.D.,
President of The University of Chicago, 111. [Founded
by John D. Rockefeller.]
. " We have not thought it wise to place any
restriction upon experimentation involving prolonged or
severe pain.
"Wm. R. Harper."
158 VII VSE CTIOX IN A MERICA .
From Rev. Dr. Charles F. Thwing. President of the
Western Reserve University, Cleveland, O.
'^ In answer to your courteous inquiry, I
beg to say that a professor who is worthy of being made
the head of the Department of Biology is certainly
worthy of deciding the important question which you
ask.i
" Charles F. Thwing."
From President Charles Kendall Adams, LL.D.,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.
''There are no rules or regulations limiting
our professors of zoology in the matter of vivisection.
I have the impression that all the authorities of the Uni-
versity have confidence that our professors will not use
their privileges in an improper manner.
'' C. K. Adams."
From G. A. Gates, LL.D.,
President Iowa College, Grinnell, la.
"The College authorities have never had
occasion to take any action in the matter. Personally,
^ What test of " worth " would Rev. Dr. Thwing apply? Pro-
fessor Gad, of Berlin, obtained a year's leave of absence during
1893-94 for the purpose of " regulating" the physiological courses
of instruction at the Western Reserve University. If Professor
Gad is "worthy," why might not Professor Strieker be regarded
as worthy to succeed him as a teacher of foreign methods ?
VIVISECTION I.Y AMERICA A' COILEGES. I 59
I should leave it to the judgment of the instructor, or
else change instructors.
"G. A. Gates."
From Henry Wade Rogers, LL.D.,
President of Northwestern University, Evanston, 111.
. . . '' The University authorities have not, by
any written regulations, defined or limited the extent to
which living animals, used for experiment, may be sub-
jected to pain. We have felt that the matter could be
safely left to the discretion of the preceptor. . . .
^' Henry Wade Rogers."
From Rev. Dr. Elmer H. Capen,
President of Tufts College, Boston, Mass.
. . . ^' The methods of doing work in the several
departments is left to the discretion of the individual in-
structors. In reference to the Department of Biology, I
have never known of experiments involving needless pain
to the lower animals.
'''E. H. Capen."
From David Starr Jordan, LL.D., President of Le-
land Stanford Jr. University, Palo Alto, Cal.
. . . '' In matters of this kind, I am decidedly of
the opinion that no restrictiojts should be put upon the
student except those which the professor may lay upon
him.
*' David S. Jordan."
l60 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
From Franklin Carter, Ph.D., LL.D.,
President of Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.
^*We have not laid down any restrictions in our
biological work, on our teachers. The principle in the
College has always been in every department to trust the
professor wholly, unless there seemed reason for distrust.
'' Franklin Carter."
From J. G. Schurman, D.Sc, LL.D.,
President of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.
" President's Room,
" Cornell University, March 8th.
^'AU experiments, in the courses in Physiology, are
upon animals just killed or completely anaesthetized.^
'^ J. G. Schurman."
From Rev. Dr. William De Witt Hyde,
President of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.
'^ The College has no rules or regulations on the sub-
ject of experiments in Biology.
^' Wm. D. W. Hyde."
From Isaac Sharpless, Sc.D., LL.D.,
President of Haverford College, Haverford, Pa.
" Haverford College, Pa.
'' Our trustees have forbidden any vivisec-
tion in our laboratory. We do not find this a serious dis-
^ The question asked was not answered.
VIVISECTION IN AMERICAN COLLEGES. l6l
advantage, though we have to omit certain lines of
research.
" J. Sharpless."
In a few instances the letter of inquiry was referred by
the president of the college to the Professor of Biology.
Some of the replies received from this source were as
follows :
" Biological Laboratory, Hamilton College, N. Y.
. ^'/ am glad to say that no restrictions have
been placed upon the experimental work of this de-
partment. The most painful experiments have been
omitted. . . . Anaesthetics are used in the few ex-
periments tried, and the animal is not allowed to recover
consciousness.
''A. D. MORELL."
" Oberlin College, March 5th.
. . . ^' I think that the judgment of preceptors
and of really advanced pupils should be trusted in such
matters.
'' Albert A. Wright."
" University of California, March gth.
. . . ' ' Your letter to President Kellogg, making
certain inquiries about our work in Biology has been
handed to me for replying. I beg to say that the Uni-
versity of California employs instructors whose judgment
it is willing to trust concerning the matter to be taught
a7td tlie methods of teaching it. It does not, consequent-
II
1 62 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA,
\y, deem it necessary to exercise a censorship over them,
either in the biological or any other department.
'' Wm. E. Ritter, Asst. Prof, of Biology."
" Amherst College, Mass.
' ' Thus far, the professor has had the power to
decide what sort of work should be done in the zoologi-
cal laboratory, and under what conditions it should be
done. . . . The trustees have undoubtedly power to
i7iake and enforce whatever rules and restrictions 7?iay seem
best to them. They have never, to my knowledge, made
any attempt to modify my modes of laboratory work.
^' I neither perform, nor allow any student to perform,
any experiments involving vivisection in the laboratory.
In very simple physiological experiments, such
as showing the circulation of the blood, I always etherize
the animal thoroughly, and then use the time of complete
insensibility preceding death for demonstration.^
'' I am convinced that our board would pass
no restrictions or prohibitions without allowing me a
hearing. / should deprecate strongly any restrictions.
I should consider such a restriction a very grave and
severe reflection on my character ; any other zoologist
would feel it just as deeply.
'' John M. Tyler."
^ Shortly after writing this letter Professor Tyler left for Europe,
for the purpose of taking- an advanced course in Biology at the
University of Prague. Doubtless the apparent inconsistency of
these two sentences arises from omission of the word '''' pauiful'^
before "vivisection."
VIVISECTION IN AMERICAN COLLEGES. 1 63
It is evident therefore that in the majority of Ameri-
can universities and colleges there are no restrictions
governing or limiting the infliction of pain. The judg-
ment of the professor is the only guide ; his wish, the only
limitation. That which in England would be a crime,
in America would not be even the infraction of a college
rule ! The freedom which prevails in the physiological
laboratories at Vienna, Berlin, and Paris has quietly taken
root in our American universities. One hesitates to be-
lieve that the atrocities of torture which have so often
stained methods of research on the Continent have been
duplicated in the physiological laboratories of any Ameri-
can college ; but the opportunity is there. As a method
of teaching, no present impediment prevents their intro-
duction at any time.
Nor is it reassuring to note the apparent unwillingness
of teachers of Biology to have freedom of action limited
by any restrictions hindering the infliction of prolonged
or excruciating pain. This repugnance one might ex-
pect in medical schools ; but it is startling to find it in
schools of science and art, where no plea of " benef-
icent utility" can be brought forward. "I should
consider such restriction a very grave and severe reflec-
tion on my character ; any other zoologist would feel it
just as deeply," says one of the leading biologists of this
country. I do not understand this extreme sensibility.
Doubtless the Czar of Russia prefers unlimited power
to the restrictions of a written constitution ; but abso-
lutism, whether on the imperial throne or in the ph3'S-
iological laboratory, has not offered to the world the
I 64 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
highest type of conduct. What, for instance, would
be thought of the president of a great and wealthy
university who should proclaim that, as regards the
expenditure of the treasurer, no restraints or restrictions
were ever imposed ; that complete confidence in personal
character took the place of all vouchers and receipts ?
What opinion should we hear of the college treasurer
himself, who refused all demand for detailed statement
of his accounts, as " a grave reflection upon his char-
acter?" Tliere is not an institution in the land where
such financial mismanagement would not be condemned.
Yet why so many precautions against prodigality of
money, and such acute sensitiveness toward the slightest
impediment against prodigality of pain ?
What may be done ? The first step is to convince
those who govern the policy of our institutions of learn-
ing that here, too, is need of judicious surveillance and
control. I am not urging this from the stand-point of
anti-vivisection. My only question is whether vivi-
section shall, or shall not be unrestricted by any rules,
or surrounded by any precautions.
If every American college were to adopt merely
the restraints which characterize the statute law of Eng-
land on this subject, the condition would be far better
than the immunity that now prevails. Or, go yet a
step farther. What consistent objection is there to a
college regulation or law that should forbid altogether
those laboratory experiments or demonstrations which
cause the infliction of any pain beyond that incident
to the most humane method of taking life ? At
VIVISECTION IN AMERICAN COIIEGES. 1 65
Hamilton College, New York, no experiments are made
upon conscious animals. At Cornell University " the
utmost pain inflicted " is the instantaneous killing of a
frog. If Science-teaching there does not suffer from
this self-imposed restraint, why should not such praise-
worthy custom be made in every college the imperative
rule ? ' ' Unnecessary ? ' ' There never yet was un-
limited opportunity, that did not, in the end, witness
most grave abuse.
We are almost at the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury. Civilization is about to enter a new era, with
new problems to solve, new dangers to confront, new
hopes to realize. It is useless to deny the increasing as-
cendancy of that spirit which in regard to the problems
of the Universe, alarms nothing, denies nothing, but
continues its search for solution ; useless to shut our
eyes to its influence upon those beliefs which for many
ages have anchored human conduct to ethical ideals.
Regret would be futile ; and here, perhaps, is no occa-
sion for regret. I say '' perhaps;" some doubt yet
mingles with our hopes. To the new spirit which per-
chance is about to dominate the future — this longing
for Truth, not for what she gives us in the profit that the
ledgers reckon, but for what she is herself; this high ^ •
ambition to solve the mysteries that perplex and elude
us, the world may yet owe discoveries that shall revolu-
tionize existence, and make the coming era infinitely
more glorious in beneficent achievement than the one
whose final record, history is so soon to end.
But all real progress in civilization depends upon
K
1 66 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
man's ethical ideals. Infinite responsibility for the
moral impetus of the next generation rests to-day on the
shoulders of those who stand at the head of institutions
of learning wherein are created and fashioned the as-
pirations of young men. What shape and tendency
are these hopes and ambitions to assume in coming
years ? What are the ideals held up before American
students in American colleges ? What are the names
whose mention is to fire youth with enthusiasm, with
longing for like achievement and similar success? Is
it Richet, ^^ bending over palpitating entrails, sur-
rounded by groaning creatures," not, as he tells us,
with any thought of benefit to mankind, but simply
*' to seek out a new fact, to verify a disputed point? "
Is it Mantegazza, watching day by day, '^ con molto
amore e patienza moltissima'' — ^with much pleasure and
patience — the agonies of his crucified animals? Is it
Brown-Sequard, ending a long life devoted to the tor-
ment of living things, with the invention of a nostrum
Aat earned him nothing but contempt? Is it Goltz
of Strassburg, noting with wonder that mother-love and
yearning solicitude could be shown even by a dying
animal, whose breasts he had cut off, and whose spinal
cord he had severed ? Is it Magendie, operating for
cataract, and plunging the needle to the bottom of his
patient's eye, that by experiment upon a human being
he might see the effect of irritating the retina? Is it
Strieker, making a tortured ape to mimic the agony of a
dying man ?
These men, it is true. Science counts among her dis-
VIVISECTION IN AMERICAN COLIEGES. l6'J
ciples. They reached fame through great tribulation,
through agony that never can be reckoned up, but it
was not their own; through "sacrifice," indeed, but
not self-sacrifice ; through abnegation of compassion, by
suppression of pity. Surely in these names, and such
as these, there can be no uplift or inspiration to young
men toward that unselfish service and earnest work
which alone shall help toward the amelioration of the
world. ''The old order changeth," but are there not
some ideals of humanity that do not waver with the
passing years ?
Perchance the curiosity of Science will one day
spend itself. The last evasive and evading mystery of
Life may not be wrested from Nature by fire or steel.
Then there may be names that Humanity will forget,
or remember only to execrate. But whenever in time
to come, men shall long to lessen in some way the awful
sum of ache and anguish in the world, may th'ey not
rather turn for their inspiration to those ideal examples
of self-sacrifice which still encourage us ; to Howard,
risking life in prison and lazar-house, that by revelation
of their infamy he might stir the conscience of Europe
to the need of reform ; to Wilberforce and Clarkson,
toiling amid obloquy and abuse for more than twenty
years to put down the African slave-trade ; to Garrison,
waging war for thirty years that he might help to free
America from the stain of human bondage ; to Shaftes-
bury, confronting the organized greed of England in his
effort to protect children in coal mines and factories ; to
Arnold Toynbee, making his home amid the squalor
1 68 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
and wretchedness of Whitechapel, that he might know
by hard experience the bitterness of Hfe for the London
poor. Are not these better examples for the emulation
of youth than those devotees of research whose pitiless-
ness is their supreme title to the remembrance of poster-
ity? Surely, they would whisper to us, if they could,
from their eternal serenity, that the right path to the
world's amelioration is not by way of torture; that our
closing century will not see the end of great opportuni-
ties for helpful work ; that while poverty, war, preventa-
ble disease and unmerited suffering yet afflict the world,
it will not cease to need the sympathy, the devotion,
and the self-sacrifice of earnest souls.
APPENDIX A.
LINES OF INQUIRY REGARDING VIVISECTION.
I. Do European physiologists as a rule p7'ofess or jnanifest
in any way the slightest regard for the sufferings of
the animals upon which they experiment ?
(See Dr. Klein's testimony before the Royal Com-
mission, 1876, Ques. 3535-3547 : '' No regard at all.")
Dr. Yeo, Professor of Physiology, London, speaks of
'<• the ofttold tale of horrors contained in the works of
Claude Bernard, Brown-Seqiiard, Paul Bert, and Richet
in France, Mantegazza in Italy, and FUnt in America."
{Fortnightly Review, March, 1882.) '' Inhumanity may
be found in persons of very high position as physiolo-
gists ; we have seen it was so in Magendie." (Report
of Royal Commission signed by Prof. T. H. Huxley.)
2. Have the cruelties of Magendie, Schiff, Bert, Man- 1 I
tegazza, Strieker, Goltz, and others, in any one single
instance, led to the discovery of a new remedy for ,
disease ?
ii
They have not. ^qq Scribner' s Monthly , July, 1880.
Lippincotfs Magazine, August, 'n 884.
I/O VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
J. When a writer asserts that in experiments '' ancesthet-
ics are always used, ' ' does he include curare ?
Ask him. Often he includes it. But curare is used
simply to keep the animal motionless.
4. Does the use of curare abolish pain ?
Claude Bernard, of Paris, and Prof. Austin Flint, of
New York, agree that sensation is not abolished. (See
Flint's '' Physiology," page 595.) Prof. Gamgee experi-
mented on children and arrived at the same conclusion.
(Report Royal Commission, Ques. 5407.)
5. Do any safeguards exist which would in any way
prevent the most cruel experiments of Europe from
being repeated here in America ?
None whatever.
6. Does any State in the Union require a report to be
made of all vivisection experiments, as in England,
Scotland, and Ireland I Or are experiments with-
out any such restraint ?
Experimenters are not required to make any report of
what they do, and there are no restrictions of any kind.
7. Are experi77ients co??imon in America which are con-
trary to law in all parts of Great Britain ?^
Painful experiments for teaching purposes are not al-
lowed in England, but are everywhere employed in Ameri-
can medical schools. As examples of American practices.
APPENDIX A. 171
consult Flint's '' Physiology, " pp. 269, 282, 403, 489,,
585-589, 639,674, 710, 738. Journal of Physiology]
vol. ii., p. 63, and vol. vii., p. 416. '' Vivisection is
grossly abused in the United States. . . . We^
would add our condemnation of the ruthless barbaritj
which is every winter perpetrated in the medical school
of this couiTUgin ' ' II" therapeutic Gazette, August, 1880."
Would it not be entirely practicable for students of
physiology to reniejnber the functions of the spinal cord,
for instance, by means of diagrams, without the use
of torture as an illustt^ation ? How do they remem-
ber such facts in Great Britain, where torture can-
not thus be used ?
No answer has thus far been given to this query by the
advocates of vivisection without restraint. ^Sr^
g. Are medical discoveries of any value ever made with-
out vivisection, or by its opponents ?
" Time was," says a writer in the New York Medical
Record, ^' when in certain forms of peritonitis, opium was
the chief remedy ; to-day, Lawson Tait's teaching that
this is da^tgerous, and that the opposite treatment by
salines is more useful, is most successfully followed." ^
Who is this Lawson Tait ?
One of the most eminent surgeons of Great Britain.
Yet he says: '' Like every member of my profession I
was brought up in the belief that many of our most valued
* N. Y. Medical Record, November 4, 1893, p. 577.
172 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA,
means of saving life and diminishing suffering had re-
sulted from experiments on the lower animals. I now
know that nothing of the sort is true concerning surgery ;
I do not believe vivisection has helped the surgeon one
bit ; and I know it often led me astray."
10. Why do not Amej'ican physicicms condemn all ex-
periments which are cruel in tendency ? 4
There are comparatively i<^\^ American physicians who
would approve or sanction some of the atrocities men-
tioned in these pages, related by the experimenters them-
selves ; may there not be many more who would welcome
any legal restrictions which would not only make such
extreme cruelty impossible, but also forbid all painful
experiments for the illustration of well-known facts ? If
every physician who believes that the door to cruelty
should be shut, would but use his personal influence to
that end, the law would be speedily passed. Let us hope
that the time may soon come, when no man in the medi-
cal profession will hesitate to denounce all atrocities of
experimentation for fear of being regarded as an oppo-
nent of science.
The final result of all inquiry regarding vivisection
must depend greatly upon the point of view assumed re-
garding man's right of dominion over the animal world.
Disregarding minor differences, it is believed that the
principal opinions held respecting vivisection may be
grouped together under four different statements.
APPENDIX A. 173
The first of the following paragraphs presents the
view practically held by those European physiologists
who acknowledare no restrictions or restraints. The
second perhaps fairly presents the opinion of American
teachers of physiology at the present time. The third
statement sets forth the position of those (including the
writer)^ who would permit experimentation upon animals,
but only when done under such legal restrictions and
supervision as would make scientific torture a crime;
while the last clause is the ground taken by those who
demand the abolition of vivisection under all circum-
stances whatever. The reader will note that each para-
graph represents one phase of opinion, slightly different
from that which either follows it or precedes it ; and
that otherwise they have no connection.
1. " Animals have no rights ivhich hicman beings are
bound to consider or respect. There need be no re-
straint ; man may kill, torture, or torment them in any
way or for any purpose of profit or amusement. ' '
2. " For his own benefit — even if slight — man has the
right to sacrifice animals with prolonged torture. The
sight, for instance, of an animal like a dog, dying in
torment, may often assist a dull or indolent student to
remember what his books and lectures teach, better than
otherwise. Wanton cruelty for mere amusement, how-
ever, should be severely deprecated."
3. '' Man is justified in taking animal life as quickly j
as possible for any^purpose of utility to himself, and even I
in using animals as subjects for scientific experimentation |
6^y.M/^- /
1 1 ll
174 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA,
whenever this may be done without causation of pain.
On the other hand, to subject an animal to torment for
anypungggewhatev^ other than the creature's own
♦Benefit, is an act of cruelty, and ethically wrong."
4. ^' The killing of animals for food, or for any other
useful purpose, is perhaps right ; but all that scientific ex-
perimentation upon them known as ' vivisection ' is so
linked in the past with atrocious cruelty, and so certain
of future abuse, that, whether slight or severe, painful or
painless, every form of experiment is fraught with dan-
ger, and, with other forms of cruelty, should pass under
the ba'n of civilization as a barbarity and a crime. ' '
APPENDIX B.
The following resolution, offered by Albert Leffing-
well, M.D., of New York, and seconded by John
Morris, M.D., of Baltimore, Md., was adopted by the
American Humane Association, at its annual convention
in Philadelphia, Pa., October 29, 1892.
'' Whereas, The evidence before this Association seems
clearly to prove that upon the continent of Europe
atrociously severe and cruel experiments upon the lower
animals are frequently performed ; and,
Whereas, While such experiments are restricted in
England, yet there exists in no one of our American
States any legal restriction preventing the most painful
experiments of continental physiologists from being
repeatedly performed even for the demonstration of
well-known facts ; therefore.
Resolved, That the American Humane Association,
while not pronouncing itself at this time either for or
against physiological research in general, does hereby
declare that, in its judgment, the repetition of painful
experiments before medical students merely for the pur-
pose of illustrating physiological truths, is contrary to
humanity and ought not to be continued. It agrees
with the opinion of the president of the Royal College
of Physicians, England, that no experiment should be
1/6 VIVISECTION IN AMERICA.
repeated in medical schools ' to illustrate what is already
established ; ' with the opinion of Professor Huxley,
that '■ experimentation without the use of anaesthetics
is not a fitting exhibition for teaching purposes ; ' with
Sir James Paget, surgeon to the Queen, that experi-
ments for the purpose of repeating anything already
ascertained ought never to be shown to classes ; with
Dr. Rolleston, professor of physiology at the University
of Oxford, that ' for class demonstrations limitations
should undoubtedly be imposed, and these limitations
should render illegal painful experiments before classes.'
Resolved, That, acting upon such scientific opinion
and acknowledging itself in accord therewith, the
American Humane Association hereby respectfully urges
upon the Legislatures of every State in the Union the
enactment of laws which shall prohibit, under severe
penalty, the repetition of painful experiments upon
animals for the purpose of teaching or demonstrating
well-known and accepted facts."
NOTE.
Anyone willing to help in the wider diffusion of
knowledge regarding vivisection and toward the pre-
vention of its deplorable abuses is invited to address
Box i6j, B?yn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Information regarding vivisection as practised both
in this country and abroad may be obtained by address-
ing either of the following societies or individuals :
American Anti-Vivisection Society, ii8 South Seven-
teenth Street Philadelphia, Pa.
Box 163, Bryn Mawr, Pa.
''The Zoophilist," No. i Victoria Street, London,
W., England.
The Humanitarian League's Publications.
No. I. — HUMANITARIANISM : ITS GENERAL PRINCIPLES
AND PROGRESS. By H. S. Salt. 2d.
"The new Humanitarian League begins effectively what promises to be
a series of publications. This thoughtful and persuasive paper must win
the sympathy of all humane readers." — National Reformer.
No. 2. — ROYAL SPORT: SOME FACTS CONCERNING THE
QUEEN'S BUCKHOUNDS. By the Rev. J. Stratton. id.
" Do decent people generally know what devilish things are done daily in
the Queen's name and that of ' Royal Sport ' ? " — Weekly Times and Echo.
No. 3.— RABBIT COURSING: AN APPEAL TO WORKING-MEN.
By R. H. JUDE, D.Sc, M.A. id.
No. 4.— THE HORRORS OF SPORT. By Lady Florence Dixie, id.
" As eloquent a condemnation of the brutalizing pastimes called ' Sports '
in England as I have ever read." — Echo.
No. 5.— BEHIND THE SCENES IN SLAUGHTER-HOUSES. By
H. F. Lester, id.
" It is necessary that the attention of the public should be aroused to the
evils attendant upon our present London system of private slaughter-
houses, and to the duty humanity imposes on us to do all that may be done
to abolish these evils." — Daily News.
No. 6.— VIVISECTION. By Edward Carpenter and Edward Mait-
LAND. 6rf.
"An admirable addition to the very useful series of publications which
emanate from the Humanitarian League." — Zoophilist.
No. 7.— "I WAS IN PRISON": A PLEA FOR THE AMELIO-
RATION OF THE CRIMINAL LAW. By R.J. 6d.
"The contents of this little publication deserve to be deeply pondered by
all who love their fellow-men, and especially by all who are concerned with
the administration of the criminal law." — Daily Chronicle.
No. 8.— WOMEN'S WAGES, AND THE CONDITIONS UNDER
WHICH THEY ARE EARNED. By Miss Isabella O. Ford. id.
" It succeeds in placing before the readers the horrible conditions under
which the mass of our working sister§ contribute their proportion of the
superabundant wealth of this cown\.xy .''''— Justice.
No. 9.— DANGEROUS TRADES. By Mrs. C. Mallet, id.
" It should be m the hands of every social reformer." — Echo.
No. 10. — THE EXTERMINATION OF BIRDS. By Miss Edith
Carrington. id.
No. II.— THE HORSE: HIS LIFE, HIS USAGE, AND HIS END.
By Colonel W. L. B. Coulson. id.
" Let every humane master who puts the care of horses into other people's
hands put into those hands one of these twopenny brown-paper-covered
messages of mercy." — Echo.
No. 12.— A PLEA FOR MERCY TO OFFENDERS. By C. H. Hop-
wood, Q.C., M.P. id.
No. 13.— THE HUMANIZING QF THE POOR LAW. By J. F.
Oakeshott. id.
The Friendship of Nature.
A NEW ENGLAND CHRONICLE OF
BIRDS AND FLOWERS.
Cloth, i8mo, Gilt Top, 75 Cents.
Large Paper Edition, with Illustrations, $3.00.
"A charming chronicle it is, abounding in excellent de-
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— Chicago Evening Journal.
" The author sees and vividly describes what she sees.
But more, she has rare insight and sees deeply, and the
most precious things lie deep." — Boston Daily Advertiser.
"There is much of the feeling of Henry D. Thoreau be-
tween the covers of this book, and the expression is charac-
terized by a poetic appreciation of the value of word-com-
bination which is admirable." — Philadelphia Evening Bttlletin.
" A delightful little book, . . . which brings one into
intimate acquaintance with nature, the wild flowers, the
fields, and the brooks." — Springfield Union.
" Thoroughly delightful reading." — Boston Courier .
"A very clever little book. It . . . takes .us through
a New England year, describing the birds, flowers, and
woods in a most poetical and delightful mood."
— Detroit Free Press,
MACMILLAN & CO.,
66 Fifth Avenue, New York.
ROMANCE
OF
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By L. N. BADENOCH.
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" The volume is fascinating from beginning to end, and there are many
hints to be found in the wisdom and thrift shown by these smallest
animal creatures." — Boston Times.
"A charming book to read, an interesting one to study, is a little
volume of untechnical natural history, ' Romance of the Insect World,'
by L. N. Badenoch. The chapter subjects are : The Metamorphoses of
Insects— Food of Insects— Hermit Homes— Social Homes— and The De-
fences of Insects, or Protection as Derived from Color. . . . The author
has been able to tell the interesting facts of the insect world in the simplest
style and in a remarkably intelligent and lucid manner. And on every
page is evidence of the thorough familiarity of the writer with the life of
which he writes and his sympathy with the subject. The result is a splen-
did book to be put in the hands of any youth who may need an incentive
to interest in out-door life or the history of things around him."
— Chicago Times.
"Though not written for children, this is a delightful book for the
little folk. It tells the wonderful facts in the lives of beetles, bugs, butter-
flies and flies, ants and spiders, wasps and bees, and all their kin, their
transformations, their methods of capturing prey or laying up food, their
care of the young or the feeble in the case of those who have this instinct,
and many other things more marvelous than the indifferent would suppose
possible. . . . There are few readers of any age who will not feel its
charm . " — Evangelist.
MACMILLAN & CO., Publishers,
66 Fifth Avenue, New York.
RICHARD JEFFERIES.
A STUDY.
By H. S. salt.
^wixh a portrait.
dilettante library.
i6mo, crocodile cloth. Price, 90 cents.
*^*Also an EDITION DE LUXE, limited, printed on
hand-made paper. With four full-page plates of
" Jefferies Land," by B. Newcombe. Price, $3.00 net.
" Mr. Salt's book is ably written. It selects only the
significant phases of the life of Jefferies for an explana-
tion of the man ; only the importa-'t incidents of his work
for an interpretation of the author." — New York Titnes.
" Mr. Salt has performed his work with discrimination
and taste. While writing from the point of view of a
strong admirer he has not permitted himself to fall into
mere laudation, and he has taken pains to provide
an excellent bibliographical index, which is at once a
comfort and an aid." — Philadelphia Evening Bulleliti.-
" Mr. Salt's study is mtensely interesting."
— Cincinnati Commercial Gazette,
MACMILLAN & CO., 66 Fifth Ave., New York,
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